Hybrid
by Ferail
Summary: Sometimes being in the wrong place at the right time can make a dramatic difference. for better or for worse.
1. Hybrid

HYBRID

**By: Ferail**

**Author's notes: I only played the beginning of the game so I don't really know much about it if you see any flaws point them out. Disclaimer: **If you had the same idea at some point in time, or even part of the idea, just assume it's yours and that I'm not claiming credit for it. Now we can all move on with our lives.

"Hello, Bing Bing delivery service" talking

"_Duck, flapjack, firehouse, swimming pool, dill pickle, I like tacos, mackerel" thinking_

"hallo Billy Rae innut here right nuw may I be taking a massage for him" writing

"**I'D LIKE THREE LARGE PEPERONNI PIZZAS PLEASE" demon speaking**

"_**I ATE YOUR SHORTS" DEMON THINKING**_

"_My fast is faster than your fast, my strong is stronger than your strong, my better is better than your best"_

Ch.1 Prototype found.

" I failed" these were the last words the sentient virus known as Alex Mercer uttered before the blast reached him, the force and radiation from the nuclear bomb stripping him of his stolen biomass. As the blast petered off the sentient ooze that had been Alex Mercer could feel the few building that had not been completely leveled teetering before toppling and burying him under hundreds of millions of tons of rubble and debris entombing the ooze. Too weak from the loss of its biomass and wracked with grief the being that once was Alex Mercer didn't move, didn't even attempt to reform itself. It turned inward observing the Web of intrigue, trying to find out where he went wrong, trying to see an angle he hadn't thought of.

He ignored the outside world neither knowing, or caring, that Manhattan was slowly eroded until it became a true island. He didn't notice humanity destroying itself in its petty squabbles. He ignored the life slowly reclaiming the newly formed island and the second coming of humanity He didn't notice as humanity rediscovered their own life force and began harnessing it, and starting on their way towards rebuilding their society. . He completely missed the original summoning contracts being formed and the entry of true demons into the world once more.

He dove through the thoughts of those he had consumed and came to an inevitable conclusion, he could never really know. Even if he spent the next several millennia reviewing the web, he could never truly know if he could have done anything different.

The conundrum that had plagued him for centuries temporarily put to rest the sentient slime that was Alex Mercer truly noticed its surrounding for the first time.

Everywhere he looked there was stone, but when he activated his thermal vision he noticed something else. Just on the other side of the stone there was a living thing, human from the looks of things. Small, only around four foot six, but it carried itself like a soldier and held several sharp objects ready, possibly just a small trooper. The remains of Alex Mercer made its way behind the small being and slithered up close to it, when the midget warrior was almost on top of him he struck, realizing too late the being wasn't a trooper or other hostile, but a child seemingly playing a game of darts.

It was too late to stop himself; he had already begun consuming the child... Though there was something odd about it….

Naruto Uzumaki was extraordinarily proud of himself, not only had he completed the tree walking exercise, but he finished before the sun set leaving him enough light to practice his accuracy without endangering himself or anyone who wandered into the clearing. He stood back from his hastily improvised target he'd carved into a tree at the other end of the clearing preparing to pepper it with kunai and shuriken.

He never noticed the slimy black and red gunk bubble its way through the cracks in the rocks a few feet behind him. The whisker marked blonde didn't see the odd oily substance slither towards his position. What he did notice is the pain in his upper back as the slime began trying to envelope him, stabbing tendrils deep into his body in violent sprays of gore before he passed out form the pain.

From deep within the bleeding blonde the ancient demon awoke, the pain of its container transferred over to it... It sensed the other presence trying to devour it and the mortal containing it, this simply would not do. Reaching out its chakra the great demon began drawing the new presence into the mortal he was sealed inside of and began analyzing it.

When it truly began looking at the foreign body it was delighted, this could be its ticket out of here. Surely the great kyuubi no kitsune as the king of demons could overwhelm the rudimentary intelligence of this odd virus and escape this hell hole, and with the viruses odd genetics it would be back to its old level of power as soon as it devoured the annoying human it was sealed inside of.

What the kyuubi hadn't counted on was the intelligence of the virus in question, as soon as it tried to overwhelm it and take control it began to feel the viruses (relatively) young but powerful mind begin absorbing it, ruthlessly stabbing and devouring the ancient king of demons. The foreign body jabbing its tendrils deep into the massive body of the demon sapping its strength "**NNOOOO THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU."** Before it ceased to be it saw the surprised features of its murderer, he was a tall being shaped in the image of a human, but obviously not. It was covered in a writhing mass of black and red tentacles all over its body, except for its face. Its face was shadowed and hooded, but the ancient demon king could make out the human like features, the widening blue eyes, the dark suntanned skin and angular features coming together to form a rather dashing figure.

The figures eyes hardened and it gave no answer simply continuing to devour the helpless demon its tendrils lashing wildly as the lord of hell screamed in abject horror as another tendril slammed into its eye in an explosion of gore before it ceased to thrash about and stilled. The newly dead demon didn't see as its body was absorbed into the tendrils, and it never knew it attempt at escape had led to something that had not happened in centuries. The creation of a new prototype...

Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Alex couldn't stop the consumption once it had begun, but he was horrified at his actions, he was consuming an innocent. As the new memories assaulted him his guilt increased, he had stolen this young ones life before he had truly been allowed to live. The child's screams had stopped what seemed like an eternity ago. (1)

Suddenly the mass of quivering tendrils felt itself come under attack from something deep within the boy, something vile and malevolent was trying to overwhelm him. Not even sparing it a second thought he attacked the second entity within the child, tasting its vile energy of the ancient creature he wasted no time in seeking out the beast and assaulting it.

The massive creature screamed in fear as it was pierced all over its body, struggling against the strong tendrils plunging into its body randomly writhing and tearing at the great demon lord, absorbing its essence. As he filleted the newest addition to his bio mass he felt something inside himself change as something new was absorbed from this creature.

He shelved that thought for now and continued his perusal of the child's memories as the creature was no longer a threat. When he came upon the knowledge of what the creature was he revised his opinion of the energy being and immediately terminated it and continued his absorption of it forgoing everything else. Such a dangerous creature demanded immediate attention and would doubtless have many tricks and abilities he could absorb other than the uninspected something he had absorbed from it earlier.  
When the last of the creature was disposed if Mercer turned his thoughts inward and noticed something odd, he was no longer consuming the boy, but he could still feel his consciousness. This warranted investigation. Several moments later the being that was once Alex Mercer began to laugh his head off. The creature was wilier than he had ever thought; it had ensured his destruction with its dying breath.

It had halted his consumption of the child with its vast energies and instead started a process of fusing the two together while ensuring the child was the dominate personality. Truly a spiteful being, it had made sure its killer did not survive it long, the child would be finished absorbing him within a matter of months a year at max, and he would be little more than a memory.  
This child he had tried to consume would inherit his abilities, kind of ironic really; he had gone looking for a meal only to become one. Looking through the child's memories a final time he decided that it couldn't have happened to a more worthy person, he was strong, loyal, and willing to go out of his way to help. While a little dull witted it was mostly ignorance rather than stupidity (2) and as long as he was around he would help the child he had almost devoured achieve what he set out for, his time was up but this boys was just beginning.

WWSDFFFFFSSERFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

'Naruto' slowly crept his way back towards Tazuna's house. The boy had yet to awaken yet so Alex had temporarily taken control to get his successor to a place of safety, looking down at 'his' shredded clothing Alex decided to go with the act least likely to get him questioned right now, he needed to contact Naruto before anything else and it was easiest to do that during a time no one would really think sitting around silently for long periods of time odd, like while pretending to sleep. Slumping his shoulders he started acting the part of the exhausted student coming in from a long day, the shredded clothes added some measure of credence to the act.

He got some odd looks, but he placated the others with boisterous talk of a training accident, the younger ones bought it passing it off as more idiocy from Naruto, but the one eyed scarecrow seemed slightly suspicious, but eventually took it at face value. Continuing the act he dragged himself over to the bedroll he recognized as Naruto's from his memories. Shredding the rest of the orange nightmare with a few tendrils he settled himself down to sleep and search for the frightened child within their newly (and temporarily shared) consciousness.

ASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSfffffffffffff

Naruto was confused, the last thing he remembered was extreme pain in that FORREST clearing, so why the hell was he in the middle of a sewer, even weirder the water seemed clean and clear despite the corroded and slightly slimy walls of the sewer ways as well as the odd lighting with no visible source. '_Whatever hit me might have dumped me down here, but why? And if someone took me prisoner why leave me untied' _shaking off the odd feeling that something was off that had snaked its way up his spine he set off in a random direction, he'd either find whoever brought him here or a way out, either way.

He wandered for what felt like hours, randomly turning at intersections and growing more and more frustrated as time passed. The entire place didn't seem to have any distinguishing features, no signs, no doors, nothing but pipes and tunnels.

Giving a frustrated sigh he turned the bend and saw something different, the tunnel opened out into a colossal room. While not as comforting as an exit it was something different. Coming into the massive room the first thing he noticed was the humongous cage taking up an entire wall, the bars themselves were at least as tall as the hokage monument back home and measured about three feet in diameter apiece. The odd thing was the cage seemed empty as far as he could see, why make a cage like this and then leave it empty?

"What the hell, what needs a cage that big" he said inquisitively to himself, scratching his head and craning his neck at the massive structure he never expected an answer.

"That cage used to contain the Kyuubi no Kitsune greatest of the tailed beasts" said a deep almost baritone voice from the other end of the room.

Startled the young blonde immediately turned towards the voice noticing the figure in the shadows for the first time, he was tall probably just as tall as Kakashi-sensei. His face was shadowed by the gray hood of his shirt except for his mouth, though for some reason his eyes were clearly visible glowing an eerie bluish green color. His clothing consisted of an odd grey sweatshirt/hoodie and a black leather jacket combination that was rarely used this far south during this time of year. He had some rather durable looking blue jeans that looked like they had been seen more wear and tear than any other piece of clothing Naruto had ever seen. Instead of the standard ninja geta and zori, instead he wore a thick pair of black boots with bits of steel on the toe and straps. He cut a rather imposing figure altogether.

After examining the man himself his brain caught up to what he had said. "What do you mean used to, and I thought the Kyuubi was sealed somewhere else" he didn't mention where exactly, one doesn't divulge their biggest secret to a complete, possibly insane, stranger.

The man stepped further into the light, "oh no he was sealed here, deep within the recesses of your mind Uzumaki Naruto. But not anymore."

The orange clad ninja looked panicked for an instant but quickly covered it. "If you're telling the truth and this," waving his hand to encompass the sewer surrounding them in a rather disgusted manner, is my mind, then how are you here, who are you, and what do you mean the Kyuubi isn't here anymore, did it escape" Mercer (if you didn't figure that out go slap yourself) noticed the slight hitch in the boys voice at the thought of the great demon lord escaping..

"No it didn't escape," the boy relaxed slightly "I devoured him" and instantly tighten back up, if this 'man' (and he used the term loosely) claimed to have destroyed one of the most powerful beings in existence and invaded his mind to do it, to what purpose and what would it do now that it had absorbed the great demon king. "Oh relax kid, I'm not gonna hurt you, truth is I doubt I could." Seeing the quizzical look in Naruto's eyes he decided to get most of the explanation out of the way at once. "You'll understand in a few moments, you're still absorbing me and you're about to get my web of intrigue, then all will be clear." He said with an enigmatic smirk on his face.

"Whaa…" was all the whisker marked blonde had time to say before he was assaulted by memories not his own, he remembered thousands of lives on top of his own, it was like he was thousands of people at once yet still himself, when he saw the entirety of Alex Mercer's life as well as the lives of everyone he had ever consumed eventually coming to the Kyuubi as well, those memories nearly made him vomit, but he held strong, and came out of the experience with a profound sense of understanding. The feeling of the thousands of lives on top of his own was rather disconcerting, he could feel his mind slipping at times, but he always managed to hold it together throughout the entire ordeal. Turning to the sentient virus that had been Alex Mercer he simply nodded too drained to really talk.

It wasn't even like he even needed to question the shape-shifter; he knew everything the other man knew. He knew his body was currently being infected cell by cell, becoming something like Alex, he knew he was inheriting all his skills and abilities as well as all the knowledge and abilities of everyone that Alex had absorbed, he knew that he could now absorb people like Alex and was slightly ashamed that he didn't feel even a little disgusted with himself and what he was becoming. No he saw this as a blessing, he now knew and could do things that no other ninja ever even contemplated and the kyuubi was unwillingly truly a part of him to control as he wished now, its power and whatever came along with it.  
With that he allowed himself to drift off into the gentle embrace of Morpheus.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Sometime in the night without anyone even noticing Naruto Uzumaki died.  
He simply stopped breathing as the last of his cells was infected and the true changes began to take place, as the unnecessary organs that used to make up his body were broken down into biomass that the new being that was Naruto Uzumaki could use for transformations and healing himself or whatever purpose he came up with. His body resumed the now unnecessary task of breathing before his teammates awakened, but the changes wouldn't be finished for another hour at least.

Dismissing the young blonde's continued snoozing as simple exhaustion and leaving him to recover the rest of his team set off to guard the bridge builder.

( you know what the begging of the bridge battle is the same the only places its different are where naruto is involved so I'm just going to skip the parts that are the same if you get confused tell me and ill fix it but for now I really don't want to write stuff I've seen a million times.)

Naruto started awake as he heard the sound of a struggle below him; instinctively he formed himself a set of clothing out of some of his newly absorbed biomass. It was similar to Mercer's except for the colors; his hoodie was a deep burnt orange. The jacket remained black but gained a design on the back and shoulders similar to the snarling face of the demon fox, his pants were black instead of blue and he kept his boots the same as Alex's. The new designs on the jacket served another purpose besides just looking cool, the eyes on the designs worked like regular eyes, it was slightly disconcerting to see all over the place at the same time, but he quickly got used to it. Mercer applauded his ingenuity, he had never even thought of anything like that.  
Shifting his vision to the new thermal setting he had acquired, he saw the silhouette of Inari and Tsunami as well as the two brutish looking ronin trying to drag the protesting woman away. He saw the small boy hesitate momentarily before charging the two thugs. He watched in horror as the larger brute prepared to make mincemeat out of the bratty child.  
Eyes widening the newly instated gennin dashed down stairs as fast as his newly enhanced body could go, bouncing off the stairway wall, mutating his arm as he went, the monstrous tendrils erupting from his arm, shifting and writhing until solidifying into the rough shape of a blade covered in bits of flesh and odd bits of metal emerging at random points all connected to a series odd tubules that resembled veins with odd protrusions resembling thorns protruding all the way up to the young gennin's shoulder. Altogether a wicked and grotesque weapon.

Barely even acknowledging the transformation he swung his new arm up meeting the edge of the disgraced samurai's blade. "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT" he screamed in horror an instant before the hooded horror used his superior strength to hurl the startled man through the door.

Turning towards the gaping figure still holding his hostess hostage he transformed his other arm into the stretchy whip fist, (which surprised Mercer to no end, he had been unable to use multiple offensive mutations at the same time, this opened up so many possibilities) the tendrils once more erupting from his skin and consuming his arm in an instant turning it into a mass of ropy tangled vines and thorns, ending in a set of wicked looking talons. Swinging his enhanced appendage forward it slammed into the thug sending him flying through the wall near the door to land near his partner on the dock outside the house.

They were immensely scared of whatever it was they had run into, was that a ninja or one of the fearsome summons they had heard about, quickly dismissing such cowardly thoughts they assumed defensive stances, Gato did not take kindly to failure.

The intimidating figure turned its head, "Hey shrimp, guess I was wrong you can be brave, when you have to" instantly the small boy recognized the figure, even with the change in wardrobe and monstrous appendages he recognized that voice. Whipping the moisture from his eyes he ran over to check on his mother. "Brat get your mom inside, I'll take out the trash," he said as he dashed through the open door to confront the battered samurai while shifting his appendages once more, this time into the colossal hammer fists, the unwieldy looking masses of flesh and studded metal concentrated around the area his fists would be and the rather grotesquely muscled arms that went with the mace like hands.

Seeing the odd display of power once again almost broke the ex-samurai's resolve, but they immediately crushed it, out here in the sunlight they could see the fearsome creature for what it really was, a short little kid using ninja trickery to fool their eyes, it would be a piece of cake to take down the scrawny little bastard and complete their task. The two soon to be deceased ronin leveled their blades and charged the ex- jinchuruki intent on maiming him, instead they found their blades grabbed out of the air by the strange looking fists the blonde konoha-nin had formed. Jerking his fists down in a decisive manner he snapped the blades in half, ignoring the stunned looks on his opponents faces he jabbed the broken blades into their chests before they could react. Quickly he dragged the two fresh corpses off to the side before going back inside to make sure his two charges were alright.  
"You two okay" he said cheerily completely ignoring the fact that he had just taken two human lives, his new memories had numbed him for now, but who knew how long it would take for the horror of what he had just done to seep through. Shifting his arms back to their normal unenhanced forms he locked over his charges. The two shell shock civilians nodded, slightly awed, was this the power of a ninja? (3) Truly fearsome, especially since Naruto was still a student, what could his teacher be capable of?

Having ascertained that his charges were going to be alright he formed a few shadow clones to watch over them and headed off towards the bridge at his best speed, slightly above the max speed Mercer had attained when the nuke had gone off due to the addition of chakra to the already formidable musculature Naruto had originally possessed. Though his speed was hindered by the thick foliage as well as Naruto's desire to preserve as much of the land he ran through as possible. (4) Within moments he reached the unnaturally thick fog that was Zabuza's signature shrouding the area where the bridge should be.  
The newly created hybrid switched his vision to his newly acquired thermal vision, which was fast becoming one of his favorite abilities... His eyes quickly took on the orange sheen associated with the ability, bathing the world in reds, oranges, greens, yellow, and blues. He spotted two blobs of heat near the edge of the bridge, one rather rotund figure behind a shorter and slimmer blob of reds and orange, most likely Sakura and the client Tazuna. There were two other figures a little farther off in the mist, the taller of the two wielding a huge slab of blue and green at the ready, identifying him as Zabuza. The other figure was slightly slumped and there were beads of crimson dotting the area around him, most likely blood, but was still going strong, most likely meaning his sensei was in need of assistance, but he seemed to be holding his own for now.

The last set of figures puzzled him; there were several floating slabs of pure blue surrounding the figure he had identified as his last teammate. One of the slabs held a warm figure from what he could tell, even though it was slightly colder than a normal human should be. What puzzled him most though was that Sasuke had not escaped the odd prison, the slabs were far enough apart that he could simply run through them, why was he looking all over the place for the enemy right in front of him .(5) Then he saw the enemy move and was even more confused. He had seen Sasuke move at similar speeds before, why was he so outclassed by the figure darting between the slabs.

Deciding his annoyingly superior teammate needed his help the most he dashed across the bridge, shifting to his least noticeable mutation, muscle mass. The bio mass he had discretely collected from consuming the two ronin and the Kyuubi increasing the density of his muscles underneath the false clothing he had created. Nothing extreme that would be really noticeable, but enough to increase his strength several times over from its already impressive 'rip a man in half' strength to 'did he train with Gai and Lee' (6) levels.

The false hunter-nin noticed the new threat moving towards her position at an alarming speed, at least upper jounin if she didn't miss her guess. She could not afford to toy with the Uchiha in front of her anymore and deal with whatever threat was headed their way. Diving towards her target from her perch at the top of the ice dome straight towards the injured boy beneath her, she was immensely surprised to find that only a few of the senbon had hit their mark as whatever the newest threat was had pierced her dome easily by smashing through one of the side mirrors and using some unknown jutsu to create a barrier of what looked like grey and black flesh, bone, and steel between her and her target. She smirked under her mask though, the important ones had hit, and the black haired boy was out of the fight. She turned her attention back to the still figure that had tried to take the blow and defend the young fool that had tried to defy her master.

The figure seemed oddly familiar, but she was sure she had never met anyone like this boy before her. He dressed more like a civilian gang member than a shinobi, but his odd ability quickly disabused her of that notion. Now that she got a better look at the figure she realized he had somehow transmuted his left arm into the shield he had tried to use, tendrils and blades erupting from the oddly corrupted looking flesh at random intervals. His eyes glowed eerily orange under his hood, and he seemed to have stopped breathing after the younger seeming boy had fallen.

"Sasuke…." That voice though immediately triggered her memory; this was the boy from the forest, the one who had worn bright orange in his fight with Zabuza? He seemed completely different, gone was the friendly and rather clumsy boy she had met and befriended, and in its place was a cold and hardened warrior, was one of them an act? And if so which one? Not to mention the grotesque item he had formed from his own flesh and his oddly glowing eyes, was this some odd kekkai Genkai? And if so why hadn't he used it in his fight against Zabuza? Shelving her questions for later, she could examine the body or ask him herself once they were no longer a threat to her master's mission.

"You killed him" said Naruto, guilt rising up within him; he had not been fast enough. With his enhanced eyes he could see as the heart of his somewhat friend slowed inside him and the blue slowly seeping into him starting at his extremities. He should have been faster, he should have knocked the enemy out of the air with a whip fist, he should have done something.

"Is this the first time you have seen a friend die?" she asked a small amount of sympathy leaking through her emotionless façade. Was this one of the precious people he had spoken of, had she taken away part of the reason the stocky blonde continued his existence. It did not matter, she must protect her own reason for existence, and she would follow her master into hell itself if he required it of her. Killing her heart in such a manner, even if it was a cruel hoax, was extremely difficult for the emotionally scarred Kunoichi, but not something she would hesitate to do. She looked at his shell shocked expression and felt a small amount of pity for the boy she would attempt to kill.

The boy snapped his eerily glowing eyes up and locked with her own masked orbs, there was no confusion on his face, somehow he could tell exactly where she was within her mirrors. The disbelieving expression fading away revealing cold rage in his burning eyes. Before she could even blink he was moving, his heel shattering the bridge they stood upon, the killer intent freezing her in her icy technique. Even Zabuza-sama's ki wasn't this intense. She watched in horror as time seemed to slow, the malformed flesh, bone, and steel of the arm-shield erupting into a mass of whirling tendrils and something else taking shape out of that writhing mass of corrupted flesh and unidentifiable masses. It looked like a blade, but not one she had ever seen before, its edge cruel and serrated. The body of the blade nearly a foot across, made of the same corrupted flesh bone and steel that had made up the other creations of this strange boy, yet it seemed more evil in nature, the hooked edges and random spikes and metal serrations lent the brutal monstrosity a certain elegance and horrifying presence. The blade seemed to meld with the grey flesh of the boys arm that seemed to flow seamlessly into his jacket, but that was not the most horrifying thing about the blade, no it was the eye. (7) The demonic eye in the center of the blade, its red pupil casting about for something to kill, large and bloodshot the horrible eye seemed to leek a bloodlust all its own a separate part of the whole.

She saw the blade, if such a creation could even be called a blade, descending toward her. The boys glowing orbs never leaving her masked face, the cold hatred in his stare kept her frozen as the sword continued its decent unimpeded by the chakra empowered ice. She was going to die…or at least she should have. It was a slight miscalculation on Naruto's part that saved her, at least for a few more seconds.

His new vision showed him heat signatures, but the inherent chill in the ice user on top of the added cold of the ice mirror distorted her heat signature enough that he made the cut just a bit more shallow than he had planned, instead of splitting the faux hunter nin from shoulder to hip he was simply rending bone and flesh in a fatal fashion, but not instantly so…she might even survive if she got to a medical facility quickly enough.

But the enraged hybrid was not going to allow that, even as the mask slid from her face revealing familiar porcelain features he raced forward. It was part of who he was now, no hesitation at all, a creature capable of atrocities never dreamed of felt no remorse as the deformed part of him descended on the girl he had considered a friend. She had taken something from him that could never be given back; she had taken the life of his teammate. Normally he would have hesitated, but after the absorption of Mercer and his memories he had seen too many horrors and had the memories of too many deaths on his conscience to let one more bother him, even one like her. An innocent, or at least as innocent as one can get in their line of business. Mercer, as well as the people and beings he had absorbed, had become a part of him, their sins were now his own, what was one more life on top of the other atrocities the new being had committed. (8)

Haku barely recognized the figure swinging around for another slash at her through the pain, she was barely conscious from blood loss and the severe trauma to several major organs and organ systems, the only thought running through the haze that had blanketed her thoughts was '_forgive me Zabuza-sama'. _She watched through half lidded eyes as the demonic cleaver sliced through the air towards her, no hesitation, no remorse, this was the idealized shinobi. Capable of killing his emotions, all except the ones that mattered in that moment; this was what she had strived to be for her master.

The thought of her master jolted her back from the abyss as she heard something over the pounding in her ears, a horrible sound like a thousand birds shrieking at once. (9) She grasped for the last bit of chakra she had left, not much, nowhere near enough for an ice mirror, but maybe a Kawimiri? But what could she switch with, desperation clawed at her as she did something that had been deemed impossible throughout the elemental nations to save her precious person; she switched with the air itself. There was a thunderous crack of displaced air as the dying ice user appeared in front of two shocked individuals.

_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA_

Kakashi was shocked to say the least; the whole situation had spiraled out of control the moment he had felt that focused blast of unfamiliar killing intent. Before that moment he would have said nothing could match the raw hatred and malice of a demon and still be human, but that blast of unbearable **human** hatred washed over the bridge. He and the demon of the mist had been stunned by the relentless intent to kill, however the scarecrow like jounin had recovered first finishing the summoning technique he had started seconds before.

The Ex-mist nin missed the tell tale burst of smoke in the dense mist and was easily captured by the summoned nin dogs. His body immobilized by the large canines digging into his flesh he could only watch in horror as his opponent channeled the vast amounts of electricity into his palm, that horrible screeching noise growing louder as the other jounin raced towards him, the crackling orb of power causing the air to snap and hiss as it became superheated and exploded, though it could barely be heard over the mind numbing scream that emanated from that crackling hand.

Things truly went to hell in a hand basket when the mangled corpse that might have once been Zabuza's partner interposed itself, seemingly of its own volition, between the Kiri-demon and the sharigan user's one original technique. Unable to stop the perverted ninja rammed his lightning covered hand through the already minced section of the woman's chest and burst through the previously unmarred section of her yukata barely singing the bare chest of his true target. The legendary jounin felt his connection to his summons disappear as they vanished in puffs of smoke, their energy keeping them anchored to the human world spent.

The freed nuke nin's deep bellowing laughter rang across the bridge "seems that tool I picked up all those years ago was more useful than I thought," the callous demon gripped his massive blade, disregarding the devoted servant who had saved his life. He swung the giant cleaver with gleeful abandon knowing that the powerful shinobi was at least momentarily weakened by the mass summoning and the powerful assassination technique.

Kakashi braced himself and tried to leap away, but he was off balance. The sudden addition of about a 115 extra pounds on his arm threw off the legendary nins balance, if only slightly, but it was enough to slow him down. His thoughts racing a mile a minute the copy cat nin tried desperately to leap away, '_No, I can't avoid it.' _Closing his eyes and giving one last prayer for the safety of his students he accepted his death…only for his eyes to snap open again as he heard s loud reverberating 'clang' of steel on steel. Standing between the veteran jounin and his nuke nin counter part was an odd looking individual Kakashi couldn't place. Slightly taller than his students the figure was dressed more like a small time hood than a ninja, but the disturbing ability the young unknown was displaying clearly marked him as a shinobi of some sort.

The large leather jacket the teen, at least he assumed the short figure was a teen, wore seemed to fade into the grotesquely muscled and slightly deformed gray arm, terminating in a demonic looking amalgamation of flesh bone and steel that could almost be called a sword if it weren't for the random tendrils sprouting out of it and the demonic looking eye that gazed out of the blade near the base. The scarecrow jonin had never seen any kind of weapon or technique like it, was this the being who had unleashed that unholy killing intent, and if so how and why was he helping the exhausted Konoha nins.

The dark figure forced the taller nin back with his massive demonic blade. Turning to the side slightly so as to keep the threatening figure of Zabuza in his sights, the shorter figure spoke for the first time, "Hey, Kakashi-sensei, you gonna be okay?" that voice, NARUTO? No it couldn't be, Naruto couldn't form such monstrous weapons from his own flesh, the cheerful ball of sunshine could never casually shove off death like the mangled kunoichi in front of him, was this the fox in Naruto's body or its influence at work? If so how? There would be time for questions later, for now the elder konoha nin simply nodded his head dumbly and tried to analyze the youngster and the changes that had been wrought upon him.

"Good, if you can make it back to Sakura do it. I'm going to distract Zabuza, get her and Tazuna out of here." The finality in his voice drove the more experienced nin back into his instinctual battle mode, the student he was with could handle himself for now if the displays earlier were anything to go by, his other students might be in danger though. As much as he didn't want to leave his formerly clumsy gennin to face off against this demon he didn't really have much of a choice. The one-eyed ninja forced himself to his feet and leapt away to what he remembered as Sakura's last position, reaching in his pouch for the scroll of medical supplies he carried with him.

Seeing his sensei leap off into the mist the transformed gennin turned fully back to the imposing half dressed figure. (10) The nukenin eyed the monstrous appendage that had replaced the gennin's arm, "What are you kid?" he said, the bandages on his face moving slightly indicating a smirk now adorned the missing nin's bandaged face, "I've seen enough genjutsu to know that no matter how strong the illusion is no one runs into a fight expecting to block with an illusionary sword, few ninjutsu affect the body like that without killing the user and none of them have effects even close to what you've done there, taijutsu would be greatly enhanced by such a technique but it wouldn't be able to create it, and as far as I know the only kekkai genkai even remotely similar is the Kaguya clan and they can only affect their bones and you use this move too well for it to be some newly awakened bloodline, so my question is, kid," the bandages on his face moved again falling away to reveal the bloodthirsty sneer of the demon of the mist, "WHAT DID YOU JUST DO."

The more experienced jonin had expected the paltry defenses of one unused to fighting another sword user, but he was quickly proved wrong as the darkly clad child swung his blade with an effortless grace blocking and parrying with a slightly demented grin forcing its way onto his features. The larger swordsman was furious, he was one of the seven swordsmen of the mist, how could this little BRAT match him in a contest of skill with the blade? Putting even more force in the assault the ex demon finally managed to force an opening in the enhanced boy's defenses while he recovered from an unexpected parry, the enraged demon swung his cleaver with all his might in a horizontal slice that separated the boys upper and lower body at the waist. Laughing manically the ex mist shinobi allowed the mist to clear momentarily so that the boy's teacher could see his students mangled corpse and know he failed.

The dark haired shinobi turned back to his kill only to receive the shock of his life, not only was the brat not dead, he was reattaching his severed lower torso. The inky black and red tendrils erupting from the severed sections of the boy's body were intertwining and pulling him back together, at least most of them were. The boy looked up at him with a psychotic grin blasting full force as some of the unoccupied tendrils flowed over to the corpse that had once been Haku before beginning to tear it apart and devour it, the tendrils seemingly absorbing the body of his oldest companion.

"What are you," mumbled the former demon, even though he already knew. As the tendrils finished devouring the former kunoichi they sprang in his direction. He tried to fight them, but they were too fast and too numerous, they overwhelmed him, stabbing deep into his flesh and tearing their way through his body, devouring him from the inside out, penetrating the skull and thrusting into the goo that had once been brains, silencing the formerly screaming demon. His last conscious thought was, "_this is a demon, this is what people saw me as. It's odd being on the other side for once," _and with that the former demon of the mist was absorbed into the amalgamation of stolen flesh that was Naruto Uzumaki.

Absorbing the memories from the ex-mist nin, as well as the various abilities he had gained from his traitorous friend Haku, Naruto didn't notice as his teacher walked over to him taking in the various tendrils currently reattaching the young Uzumaki's body back together, wondering what the hell was going on and vowing to get an explanation from his most surprising student.

AAAAAAAAAAA

Yeah im cutting it off here, the battle with gato will be at the beginning of the next chapter as well as the return to konoha and the talks with kakashi and the sandaime I hope. Anyway I can't wait for the chunnin exam; in this story so it may be updated quickly I don't know. If you have questions review and ill pm you back the answers if I can...  
Authors notes; 1) the consumption process is greatly slowed by his weakness. 2) Ignorance is not knowing stupidity is an inability to learn. 3) Tsunami and inari are civilians and don't know much about ninjas, they have no reason to believe that this ability is special. 4) when mercer runs in game chunks of whatever he runs on are ripped up and flung about.(5) thermal vision cannot see reflections only areas of hot and cold and therefore Naruto doesn't see the multiple reflections that are confusing Sasuke 6) no he hasn't met lee yet but I think the analogy is appropriate 7) think like soul edge, even though it's not the eye is cool as hell 8) he is still mostly Naruto, but he has all the experience and knowledge of Mercer and the people he has absorbed, which leads to an oddly practical view of the world. 9) She's in that zone where time seems to slow down. Bullet time 10) seriously does the guy own a shirt or does he just like showing off?


	2. Brutality

**Hybrid Ch.2 Brutality**

**By: Ferail**

**Author's notes: I only played the beginning of the game so I don't really know much about it if you see any flaws point them out. **

**Disclaimer: **If you had the same idea at some point in time, or even part of the idea, just assume it's yours and that I'm not claiming credit for it. Now we can all move on with our lives.

Everybody thank my BETA shadowassasin for the prompt return of this chapter, say hi shadow… Guess he's feeling shy, anyway I forgot to mention him last chapter, but he does wonderful work right folks.

Note: Holy fucking hell!!!!! People seem to be responding better to this fic than I thought they would, wow. This story already has more hits favs, alerts, and reviews than my first one and it's been up for about six months…..damn that's sad.

"Hello, Bing Bing delivery service" talking

"_Duck, flapjack, firehouse, swimming pool, dill pickle, I like tacos, mackerel" thinking_

"hallo Billy Rae innut here right nuw may I be taking a massage for him" writing

"**I'D LIKE THREE LARGE PEPERONNI PIZZAS PLEASE" demon speaking**

"_**I ATE YOUR SHORTS" DEMON THINKING**_

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"All who does not fear me will perish, and all who come near me will burn. I will slay and I will down the pills of hatred you throw at me. No one will see me as I come."

Review reply: I have been pming people back for their reviews but since your anonymous ill do it here

Narutodevilfan: finally someone noticed the soul edge reference, I'm probably not going to do that often but it just sort of happened. I was just typing and it just felt right. That and I just think soul edge is pure awesomeness. I might put in some other references but not too many.

Maelstrom: nice idea, but I don't think it would work with the way I see his bowers working, I see it more as he becomes that person, he is them, he knows all they know, he has all their memories and can even turn into them, why bother talking to them when you are them? And I've already got an idea for a Naruto multiple personality fic.

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Kakashi approached the writhing mass of tendrils that had engulfed his most troublesome student completely ignoring Sakura's fearful mutterings about "tentacle demons" and "purity". This being had sounded like him, but was it, had the Kyuubi taken over? Was this some kind of undiscovered bloodline that had made itself known in the kyuubi Jinchuruki?

Inside the coffin of inky black and red tendrils the being that had been Naruto Uzumaki could feel the changes throughout his DNA, absorbing advantages and breaking down the newly absorbed bodies into their components and storing the biomass. The memories assaulted him, but only one set? What happened, he'd absorbed two bodies here. He hadn't gotten any memories from the two ronin from earlier, but he and Mercer hadn't really thought much about it, but now they were seeing a severe disadvantage in the ninja world, they couldn't seem to absorb memories from the dead. He had Zabuza's memories of seeing Haku perform the techniques, but he had had no idea how the abilities worked. After all a master doesn't need to know how his tool works, only that it does. Great, he had an awesome ability and no idea of how to use it.

Mercer was switching between amusement at the young infected's predicament, worried about how the young man he had tried to consume would explain the startling new abilities he had gained, and amazed at the strange sights and abilities this new breed of humans had created. Commanding the elements themselves to do your bidding, calling forth creatures from other realms, rendering the senses useless with their powerful illusions. Within the memories of this Zabuza character alone there were hints of massively powerful techniques that could possibly even destroy the last of the infected, or at the very least use up a massive amount of his stored biomass.

The quivering tendrils that had encased the boy during his absorption slithered and writhed seemingly fading back into flesh and cloth, revealing the figure who had rescued Kakashi. The scarred Jonin had to admit, this figure looked quite a bit like his student underneath his hood, but he was taller, at least four inches. The clothed he wore seemed to be non shinobi issue, they looked more like civilian retail clothes than anything a trained killer would wear (maybe an untrained one, like yakuza or vigilante), though the eyes on his clothes were rather disturbing, seeming to follow his movements like a hungry predator watching a rather juicy morsel. And the disturbing transformations that left his pink haired student petrified with fear.

Through his still active sharingan the one eyed scarecrow examined him, looking for the telltale shimmer of genjutsu and henge around the true figure. But they weren't there, there was no doubt, this was his student, or at least his body. The hooded snapped its vibrant blue eyes off to the side gazing into the thinning mist with a bestial snarl forming on his lips.

Turning to the side Kakashi noticed the small mouse like figure (he couldn't be more than 4'3") limping towards them. His gray hair slightly thinning in the front going back into drooping spikes. His face was scrunched and rat like, emphasized by the whisker like mustache he affected, his beady little eyes hidden behind small oval glasses. The Small man wore a faded gray business suit over his slight paunch and a gold handled cane assisted his slow gait. Gato, the parasite sucking the life out of the once prospering Wave country.

"Well, well. Seems the Demon of the mist failed after all, thanks brat you saved me the trouble of doing it myself" said the rat like business man said with confidence. Out of the mist drifted hundreds of ragtag mercenaries, dressed in castoffs and scavenged armor. Their weapons crude and handmade, slight bits of rust flaking off as they walked, and the jingling of metal indicated hidden surprises on their persons. Their broken and yellowed teeth revealed as they leered at the injured ninja before them distorting their scared and ugly faces further.

The Businessman sneered at the bloodstains on the bridge before turning back to the tired nin. "I'm sorry, but I can't just let you live now, its bad business to leave loose ends." Turning to the mercenaries that had come with him, "Kill them, take the girl if you must, but kill the rest, then we're going into town. These worms think they can defy me, we need to teach them a lesson." The sneering parasite turned his back and swaggered to the back of his mercenary swarm, to watch the carnage from a safe distance, after all it simply wouldn't do to get blood on his new suit.

Turning to his teacher the being that was Naruto made a shooing motion, "Sensei, we'll talk later, you Sakura and Tazuna need to get out of here." Turning back to the grinning horde, "Check the area where the girl and Sasuke fought first, he may have been a bastard, but at least he deserves a proper burial, then get to Tazuna's house and look after everyone, I'll meet you there."

The silver haired jonin was still reeling from the implications of the words burial and Sasuke. Had he let down another person who had depended on him? Still slightly numb he didn't even question his loudest student, rushing towards the two shocked noncombatants he grabbed their client and slung him over his shoulder ignoring the old drunk's squawk of protest and Sakura's questioning eyes he covered his donated eye to conserve energy. Making his way over to his dark haired student's former battle ground he found the boy peppered with tiny slivers of metal, that nearly broke him. At the sight of her crush's motionless form the pink haired kunoichi broke down into hysterical sobbing fits, screaming about "Sasuke, no you can't be dead you're the rookie of the year." And similar inanities.

Her cries seemed to amuse the crowd of mercenary scum, they laughed long and hard, nearly drowning out the most wonderful sound Kakashi had ever heard. Breathing. The long shuddering gasps that had escaped his formerly motionless student catapulted him into action once more, he silenced his hysterical kunoichi with a single sentence, "Sakura he's not dead," she immediately turned her attention back to the 'corpse', "but he does need medical attention, I need you to carry him." She nodded resolutely before turning back to the motionless figure standing between them and the filthy mass of humanity.

"But sensei, that's Naruto out there right, we can't just leave him here he'll be slaughtered" she said, voicing the protests he would normally have formed immediately before he had seen the one sided slaughter between his most unpredictable gennin and the demon of the mist.

"Sakura, he'll be fine, but Sasuke needs help now," was the young jonin's quick reply, '_I hope'_ turning his back on his blond student went against every fiber of his being, but he hoped his new abilities would carry him through for now, at least until he could stop the bleeding and leave the weaker members of their party somewhere safe. Nodding at her sensei the quartet set off into the forest leaving the frightening new being that had once been the kyuubi container against the disgusting tide of humanity that had taken up service under Gato's banner.

The blond shape shifter (1) turned fully back to the wall of rusty steel and unwashed flesh. "Aww isn't that just too sad. His little buddies abandoned him here with us." Said the lead most figure, a towering giant easily two meters of muscle and scar tissue. His sword while slightly better than his comrades was still chipped and showing the first signs of rust. His eyes held glee and bloodlust in equal amounts, "don't worry chickadee we'll make this quick, HAHAHEHEHEH-cgluck" his attempt at intimidation was cut short by a razor bladed disk (2) imbedding itself in his throat. The triple bladed instrument of death was twisted and metallic looking at the base, but the blades seemed to be made of large sharpened bones shaped into parodies of a predators teeth. Each blade was more than six inches long, all together the large pinwheel of death was nearly a foot and a half across.

As if pulled by some unseen force the enormous shuriken look alike spun and pulled itself free of the muscle and tissue that had formerly been a neck, showering the lower minions in blood and gore as it curved back to land in the hands of the oddly dressed shinobi, or at least it should have been a hand. The three thick stubby fingers more resembled some Halloween prank gone wrong than anything else. The arm bulged with restrained power, stretching the skin tighter than the skin on a drum. The warped and twister flesh had several spines of bone protruding from the shoulder and forearm curving back and forth in cruel imitations of teeth. The metal spines at odd intervals and protruding from the elbow seemed to add an even crueler edge to the demonic appendage. Looking closer one could see the studding around the knuckles and palm that could have been metal.

The transformed shinobi flicked the massive glaive to clean it of the blood staining its blade before the multitude of tendrils erupted from his deformed arm reabsorbing the biomass from the newest weapon in the mutant's ever growing arsenal. The shape shifting shinobi smiled a devils grin as he dashed forward, leaving a crater in his former position. The grin didn't falter as the tendrils exploded into action morphing his arms into the cruel claws he remembered from Mercer's memories.

The foot long swords like 'fingers' cleanly decapitated the first two mercenaries in fountains of blood. Ignoring the spear that had found its way into his gut he swung around turning the unfortunate thug's internal organs into external organs all over the bridge. Ignoring the cries of pain from his first victim and the shocked exclamations of the front ranks of Gato's little army, he continued the smooth motion shifting the moving arm into its heavy hammer fist form pulverizing the unfortunate mercenary on his left. He felt several bladed instruments stabbing into his back as he shifted his left arm this time, the cruelly hooked claws morphing together in a mass of tendrils forming the 'normal' unenhanced blade arm. Swinging the sharp instrument of death down he cleanly sliced one of the mercenaries in half while steeping forward and thrusting the blunt hammer fist through another mercs chest coating the men behind him in a fine spray of intestines and bone fragments.

'_This is too slow, they're like cockroaches. I don't have time for this." _Reaching for the haft of the spear that was still lodged in his stomach he ripped it free uncaring of the damage he had just inflicted on himself as the hole in his gut sealed itself in a writhing mass of tendrils that left in their place unmarked cloth. Switching his hammer fist into the tangled mass of brambles that was the hallmark of the whip fist the hooded gennin swung forward capturing another mercenary and using his body to intercept the various thrown knives and spears. "_but I don't have any area effect jutsu, the spine thrust could probably do more damage to the bridge than these guys, and Kage-Bunshin aren't durable enough' _Shifting the demonic blade into the monstrous arm and glaive combo he had created, he leapt into the air easily clearing fifteen feet before letting the little windmill of destruction loose severing limbs and leaving debilitating gashes everywhere it passed. Swinging the vine like whip fist towards a relatively untouched patch of thugs he dragged himself over slamming the stubby fingers of the glaive arm through the skull of one of the unlucky horde. "_Still not good enough" _he thought as he caught the spinning glaive before imbedding it into the skull of the thug next to him.

The oppressive smell of blood, steel, and fecal matter became worse with every unnecessary breath filling his nonexistent lungs, as his whip like appendage wrapped around another poor souls neck he stopped breathing all together. The screams of his victims rang in his head as he spun around the glaive screaming as it sliced through the air towards another unlucky mercenary striking him in mid step. The former jinchuruki spared only a moment to retrieve the piece of himself with the whip fist before burying the spike of his nightmarish arm in the bowels of a former soldier who had tried to sneak up on him. In a show of brutality he ripped the spine up through the dying mans shoulder before burying the glaive in his jugular, silencing his screams permanently.

Suddenly struck by inspiration the monstrous gennin dismissed the grotesque glaive arm and concentrated on the slight claws of his whip fist. He could use the ability he had absorbed from the Kyuubi. While most of its abilities wouldn't mesh with his physiology and would require a full transformation there were a few that he could make use of in 'human' form. The bijuu's ability to mutate its own DNA to allow for the fusion of beneficial mutations, such as when it used multiple elements at the same time or created another one. While he couldn't do anything with the elements in his current form until he had done a few more trial runs, he could combine already existing mutations to form something new, something he could use right now.

He could feel the talons of the whip fist fusing together, forming a massive ball of flesh, steel, and bone…the hammer fist on the end of a whip fist… a morning star. He swung his new instrument of death forward, pulverizing a man who was attempting to shove his rusty pike into his skull (fat lotta good that would have done) as well as the five men behind him before they even had time for more than a strangled gasp. The Newly infected gennin grinned once more, enlarging the heavy end of the flail he twisted around bringing the newest tool of destruction down in a classic overhand strike crushing half a dozen under its colossal weight and momentum.

"_It still needs something"_ almost instantly he got an idea, grinning mercilessly he swung the cumbersome weapon to the side forcing more biomass down the stretchy whip like arm to the mace like appendage. Instantly spines began to form at uneven intervals, cruelly hooked and barbed, they tore through a dozen of Gato's men as they formed before the former jinchuruki leapt upward once more calling the deadly morning star back to himself.

Swinging the newly created mutation once more he smashed it into the dense patch of scared mercenaries immediately below him pulverizing a dozen under its great weight and eviscerating half a dozen more with its twisted mockery of a flails spines. Forcing chakra down his arm into the demented hammer fist he forced the spine out of his 'flesh' in an explosive shower of black blood and tendrils as they quickly began forming new spikes. The former ones had manages to lodge themselves in the bodies of the three a dozen mercenaries who hadn't fled or died.

One spine had gone cleanly through one man to imbed itself in another's eye socket. Here three men had managed to survive the initial attack only to find they were incapable of moving, their spinal cords severed as they slowly bled out screaming out for help, but their cries were ignored by their brethren who had already fled or were dying themselves. The only one completely unmarked was the quivering business man huddled near the edge of the bridge, eyes alight with terror. This was no shinobi; this was a leashed demon, more so than Zabuza had ever been. What kind of monsters was this that he had caught the attention of?

Hoping to avoid the creature's notice he slowly made his way towards the edge of the bridge, jumping from such a height would probably break bones, but it was better than staying here with that thing. Keeping his eyes on it as the enormous flail burst into those horrible writhing tentacles once more before settling into the human like appearance it had before the creature began its massacre. His heart leapt into his throat as he saw the eyes of the demon on the back of the creatures shirt shift their crimson orbs onto him. The demonic face's mouth split open revealing tusk like teeth and three pitch black forked tongues waggling furiously in the beast's maw.

The terrified mobster could only watch in horror as the creatures entire form was covered it those demonic black and red tendrils completely covering its form. Less than a second later the mass of tentacles receded back into the creature's body revealing its new form. "ZABUZA, BUT YOUR DEAD?!?!?!?!!?!??" screamed the corrupt business man as the form of his former employee advanced on him, tendrils erupting from his back, twisting and binding to each other until a gleaming blade of unmarred steel was in their place. The familiar slab of metal honed to a razor's edge with a slight curve near the tip, Kubiki hocho, the head chopper cleaver, Zabuza's signature weapon.

The menacing figure hefted the unadorned zanbato high in the air; "Goodbye scum" came the guttural voice of the mist demon as the giant blade descended on the cowering wannabe mob boss.

"You really are a demon" Gato whispered before the unwieldy horse slayer crushed his skull and split his body in twain. It seemed rather fitting to use the ex-mist shinobi's form to kill his traitorous employer, vengeance was sweet. (3) Turning back to the scene of carnage on the rest of the bridge the being that had been Uzumaki shifted back to his new 'default form,' examining the mauled bodies of the bandits gone mercenary the newly minted gennin shifted several large tentacles from his back, he had to clean up a bit at least, after all 'make a mess clean it up' was always his motto around the house and it just seemed rude to leave trash all over someone else's nice things.

The flailing tentacles stabbed into the disgusting splatters that had once been people, the mostly whole one's he left alone(4) after all he needed some sort of evidence a battle had taken place here, but the splattered forms of his newest weapon's victim's would most likely draw some odd questions. He couldn't do anything about the craters but they looked like a couple of explosive seals had been detonated on the spot and he could work with that, but the crushed bodies didn't look like anything any gennin should be capable of. He could feel himself approaching some sort of internal limit as he absorbed the last puddle of ooze that had once been a person, he knew from Mercer's memories that was his maximum biomass levels, he could still absorb more, but that was the most he could absorb without altering his shape to accommodate the excess mass.

Finished with his gruesome cleanup for now, the currently blonde shape shifter headed towards the forest, he needed to think. The newly created killing machine meandered in the general direction of Tazuna's home, taking a longer route whenever possible, trying to puzzle out what he could say to his teacher. He knew he could lie convincingly due to various people within the web of intrigue as well as his most recent acquisitions, what jonin couldn't lie convincingly especially one who relied on stealth and guile like Zabuza.(5)

But what lie to tell, should he use the Kyuubi angle?, an undiscovered bloodline?, a new technique he had just finished?, the truth?.... the sentient virus giggled a little to himself at the last one, the truth was the one least likely to be believed and most likely to get him in serious trouble, well other than the Kyuubi excuse. By the time he had made it back to Tazuna's rather well kept home he had a basic idea of what he thought would work, he figured he could wing the rest '_hey its worked out rather well for me so far.' _He thought, ignoring Mercer's strangled cry of '_dumb luck' _he pushed open the front door as the sun began to set behind him.

There was never any doubt in his mind that Kakashi had senses him as soon as he entered the property so he wasn't surprised when the perverted jonin grabbed him by the shoulder the minute he walked through the door. "I just need to talk to Naruto for a minute okay guys," he tossed over his shoulder at his exhausted and injured gennin. Hearing their grunts of affirmation the one eyed-sensei steered his student back outside towards the clearing where they had learned about tree walking earlier that week.

"Okay Uzumaki, what the hell is going on, back at the bridge, that killer intent and those odd transformations. Zabuza was right no known ninja technique or bloodline does anything like that, spill." There was as slight hint of concern throughout the copy-nin's speech, he needed to know what was going on with his currently most enigmatic student, how long had he been hiding this ability?, and if he could hide something like this what else could he be hiding? Fixing his uncovered eye onto the nervous looking gennin the legendary shinobi made himself comfortable on a large protruding root.

"I haven't been able to do that for too long," he said truthfully completely ignoring the grunt of disbelief from his teacher, "only about a week, I noticed a little bit during the fight with Zabuza." Now he was lying and lying hard, his sensei had leaned forward slightly scrutinizing his posture searching for deception or any hint that this wasn't his student, with a slightly stunned look on his face. "You know Zabuza's killer intent? How strong it was?" seeing his teachers nod he continued "As soon as I felt that I could feel my body reacting without me wanting it too, telling me to run away or to destroy the threat immediately, I could actually feel my nails turning into metallic claws, my body felt lighter and I felt my arms becoming more dense stretching the skin, my legs felt stronger faster, I felt like I could run forever."

Taking his sensei's silence as a signal to continue, "it was the first time I'd ever felt killer intent like that, I think it woke something up, an advanced fight of flight reflex or something. I didn't know what was going on," time to play up the scarred little kid routine, "everybody calls me a demon as it is, I thought this was proof at first." He said his voice becoming slightly softer, near the end he was mumbling. His one-eyed teacher's face softened a little, he had read the reports on the kid's life when he had gotten him for a gennin, and it wasn't a very pretty picture. "So I hid it as best I could throughout the fight and after Zabuza was 'killed' I felt the transformations going away."

"Then when we were tree walking," he said waving his arms at the multitude of scars adorning his and Sasuke's trees, "I felt that feeling again only this time it was just that incredible feeling in my legs when I channeled chakra to my feet, like I could run forever. That's actually why I fell down the first time, it was a major shock." Turning to his stunned sensei he smiled widely, "that's actually why I stayed later than everyone else; I was experimenting with it seeing how much control I had over the transformations I had noticed."

Here his fingers elongated about an inch or so taking on a slightly metallic sheen, turning to an un-marred tree the most surprising konoha nin ran his talons lightly over the tree leaving inch long gouges in the bark. "I freaked out at first, but I gained control and learned a little bit about it," turning back to his sensei with his clawed hand presented he forced the shift to the full razor hands mode, the hand smoothly transitioning without the dark tendrils overwhelming his flesh, forming the corrupted flesh that was the black-light virus's hallmark. The scarecrow jonin's eye widened fractionally as the disfigured skin and bone was revealed.

Quickly shifting to the sword form the sun kissed virus watched the awe and disgust warring on his teachers face as the tendrils burst forth remaking the cruel talons into the equally wicked blade that Mercer AKA Zeus had been known for. "The tentacles only happen when I change quickly or transform it all the way into this." He said presenting his new arm to his perverted sensei. "I found that the forms I can take are only limited by what I can come up with." He said shifting his arm into the glaive tosser he had made earlier, then to the studded hammer fist, and finally to the tangled mass of vein like tendrils that made up the whip fist. "I don't really know what it is, but I don't think it's the ," he glances around shifting his eyes to the glowing orange that signifies his heat vision was active, "you know what" he said evasively deactivating his luminescent eyes.

His sensei had a thoughtful look on his face, or at least he thought it was a thoughtful look he couldn't really tell with so much of his face covered. He really thought he ought to be up for an Oscar(6) for that performance "_I'd like to thank the academy" _he thought dryly, keeping up his smiling expectant mask and hoping the legendary nin had bought it. "But what about your eyes and those tentacles? What are they and what happened to Zabuza's and the girl's bodies? And you were cut in half, I had the sharingan activated at the time, that was no bunshin, that was you, how did you survive?"

He allowed himself a momentary internal sigh of relief, he seemed to believe him so far, but he'd hoped his sensei wouldn't ask about the tentacles at least, he didn't really have a good excuse for those. "Oh yeah," the blonde said as he forced the shit eating grin he had adopted wider, "the eye thing, I almost forgot about them. They feel so natural and it's so easy to activate them I kind of forgot." He said completely truthful for probably the second time in the entire conversation.

"I don't really know what they do, when they're on its strange. I can't see details and all the colors change… I think it sees heat." Seeing the quizzical expression on his sensei's face he tried to elaborate, "hot things like people show up red, orange and yellows, with the hottest parts glowing the brightest. Cold things are blues, greens, and purples, and they get duller as they get colder. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of light I'm in or if anything like smoke, mist, or really thin walls I can see." The grin on his face wasn't faked this time; it really was a cool ability to have.

"I don't really know what the tentacles are." He forced don his exuberance as he replaced it with a puzzled frown, "it was the first time I've done anything like that." Okay slip in the slight bits of truth among the lies, even if it was a half truth, this body never had done something like that, "All I was thinking about was that I wanted them to disappear and those things that some out when I change too fast just started attacking him, no idea what was going on or what happened to their bodies." He might tell the old man about his full abilities, but for now he just didn't know enough about Kakashi to risk it, he might be a heavy team player, but he was also an unknown for the most part. And unknowns can be dangerous.

"The cutting in half thing… I don't really know myself." Seeing his sensei's disbelieving look he knew he wouldn't accept an answer like that, "I've always healed faster than everyone else, but I've never been hurt THAT bad before you know." He shrugged his shoulders evasively. "I always thought it was just something special about me, and after Mizuki told me about…you know what" he forced his features to droop almost imperceptibly. "I thought IT was behind my healing, but now I don't think so, I think it might have been whatever ability it is that allows me to 'change' pulls my pieces back together or something. Could be…you know what just not wanting me to die or something." He plastered a slightly lost look on his face as he looked up at his sensei expectantly, inside he was screaming '_PLEASE BUY IT, PLEASE BUY IT, PLEASE BUY IT.' _

"You and me are having a talk with the Hokage when we get back, and you may have to take some leave," said his jonnin before losing his impassive features and 'eye smiling' at his student once again, "after all, you can't leave a newly discovered bloodline loose without at least some study and supervision."

'_No need to stress him out without proof." _He thought to himself, _'and a bloodline is easier to explain and accept than a jinchurruki whose seal is weakening. We're going to need someone to take a look at the seal, or if Jiraiya isn't in town we may have to have a Yamanaka go in and investigate.'_ Pushing his thoughts aside he motioned for the wildest of his gennin to follow him. "let's go tell your teammates, I'll even let you rub it in Sasuke's face for a little while that he's no longer the only natural bloodline user on the team." He said tauntingly, after all a little healthy rivalry among teammates never hurt anyone, what was the worst that could happen. (7)

Naruto grinned, not the psychotic grin of a demon from the bridge, but his old happy go lucky smile. Not only did he get one of the most experienced shinobi in the leaf to at least partially believe his collection of half truths and outright lies, but he also got to rub his most annoying teammates face in his newly activated 'bloodline' abilities, SWEET. It would be even better if he hadn't seen the obnoxious boy's red eyes on the bridge earlier in the day, but you can't have everything you want (look at him and Sakura (8) for the past two and a half years.)(9)

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Oh, this was absolutely fantastic!!! Sasuke had briefly activated the copy wheel eye on the bridge, but he had no idea how he had done it. Naruto didn't think for an instant the rookie of the year wouldn't figure it out by the time they got back to Konoha or he was feeling better (whichever came first, Kakashi wanted them gone as soon as the bridge was finished), but for the moment he was the only member of the team who could use the advanced un-copy able skills a bloodline gave its user. (10) It was nice to have on up on the bastard.

As soon as Kakashi and him had stepped through the door they had been greeted by the fan girlish squeals of delight and the slight tinge of disappointment as Sakura screamed out "You really activated it" quickly followed by "I'm sure you'll figure it out Sasuke-kun." The two current team powerhouses looked at each other, one giggling slightly at the prospect of being better than his smug teammate for once, while the other just sighed as he pulled out his newest volume of Icha Icha. It was going to be a long day.

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Naruto snickered slightly at the glare his brooding teammate was shooting him as they began their trek back towards their home village. After a quick discussion with his teammates that had included both of them shouting about "No way that loser has a bloodline" and exclamations of disbelief when he has shifted the hand he hadn't been eating with into one of his most intimidating forms (at least in his opinion). Seeing their teammates arm suddenly become the wicked looking sword from his battle with Haku, its bloodshot eye staring at them with undisguised hunger left them and the civilians at the table slightly green, while leaving his other arm free to grab another spoonful of what looked like mashed potatoes. (11)

He had given an abridged and edited version of his battle on the bridge, which no one had believed until they had arrived the next morning to see the various scavengers feasting on the multitude of corpses that had been left out after Naruto left the day before. The blonde shape shifter almost felt bad as his pinkette teammate rushed to the edge of the bridge and purged her stomach of everything she'd eaten in the last three days, "Huh, didn't see any carrots at the table last night?" said Kakashi unsympathetically, death was part of a shinobi's life and even if it rarely took place on such a scale she should take the moment to get used to it, "_at least Sasuke is holding up okay…" _

"GLAUGHT" came the unmistakable sound of someone tossing their biscuits at the other end of the bridge from Sakura, "_Dammit." _He thought turning to see his most celebrated student hunched over the railing trying to pretend like he hadn't just vomited.

"_Even Itachi wasn't this brutal, what happened to the dobe, and how can I learn how to do it." _The brooding avenger thought to himself, looking around at the destruction, dismembered bodies soaking in their own fluids as various birds and wild animals gorged themselves on the remains. _ "Itachi killed with efficiency, one stroke one kill, never anything this massive, and most of his kills were quick and painless, these were all put down quickly and brutally. Most of these look like they survived the initial attack only to die of blood loss or complications." _ Turning his eyes onto the upper torso of one of the corpses who looks like he had expired while trying to crawl away, only succeeding in spreading his internal organs all over the place behind him. 

Naruto had volunteered to help clean up his 'little' mess with the help of Kage bunshin, but he was shot down and hurried off the bridge after his clones had started just hurling bodies over the sides of the bridge for "nature to take care of" as the young Uzumaki put it. The young infected had whined incessantly as Kakashi dragged him into the training clearing and told him to practice tree walking and improving himself in the various shinobi arts until the sun went down, busy work basically to keep him out of trouble. "Seriously, why waste limited space on an island by burying people or setting up a funeral pyre for scum like that when there is a perfectly good ocean right there full of things willing to dispose of them for you?" he grumbled a she began trying to figure out new combinations and transformations he could use while pacing up and down one of the unmarred trees.

All in all about two weeks had passed before they could return to the hidden leaf, Tazuna had been mumbling about names as they left saying something about "Slaughter bridge 'll just drive people off," as they hefted their packs and leapt towards the forest. Sasuke still hadn't activated his eyes, which was why he was currently glaring at the class dead last. He had taken it as a personal affront that Naruto had unlocked and attained proficiency a powerful and unknown 'bloodline' before he , the mighty Uchiha, had even truly unlocked and begun acclimating to his new eyes.

Sakura was still fawning over the Uchiha and giving her blue eyed teammate a wide berth, she did not want to end up on the bad side of the unbalanced and quite likely outright disturbed boy. She might have lacked basic shinobi skills that most people had before their second year in the academy ended, but she did have enough common sense not to needlessly antagonize someone who had already proven they could slaughter several dozen people and not feel bad about it later.

That last bit had slightly concerned Kakashi, not once had his gang member lookalike shown any signs of remorse or guilt for his actions as was normal for a new gennin who had gotten his first kill. It was just odd. He was definitely having him checked out at the psychological wing of the hokage memorial hospital the minute they got back, whether the Hokage thought his suspicions unfounded or not there was no way that it was normal for a twelve year old to be unaffected by such bloodshed.

As they stepped through the gates to their home village he had dismissed his two slightly less abnormal students, saying something about reporting to the Hokage about a previously unknown bloodline making itself known in a member of their village. He had grabbed the hooded blonde by his shoulder and flashed away in the familiar swirling leaves of the shushin before he could protest. The two shinobi had appeared in the reception area of the Hokage's office and proceeded to rush into the Hokage's office completely ignoring the secretary's screeches of "you need an appointment." Pssh, since when did a military unit with important intelligence need an appointment to see their commanding officer.

Seeing the slightly disgruntled gang member wannabe that bore a striking resemblance to his adopted grandson, except for the height and the clothes, standing next to his successor/ predecessor's ("_now that was just a dick move on Minato's part" he_ whispered to himself) final living student immediately carrying their travel packs set off all kinds of warning bells in his mind. Turning fully towards the two figures who had intruded on his alone time (he discreetly whipped away a small trickle of blood from his nose as he hid the small orange book in the confines of his baggy kage's robe) he assessed the two, the one eyed jonin had the same lazy posture as always his single exposed eye trained on his perverted novel ("_soon my precious," _he thought silently giggling to himself as he stroked the small book on the inside of his sleeve in its specially made hidden compartment (12)) thought he could tell that most of the perverted jonin's attention was trained on the strangely dressed figure he had managed to identify as a shinobi of the leaf, his headband shadowed by the strange hood he wore.

The second figure looked up at the taller silver haired nin before speaking "Not cool Kakashi sensei, not cool at all. You couldn't even let me put my stuff away at home?" that voice was definitely Naruto, so was the attitude, if a slight bit quieter and more sarcastic. What had happened to the boy on their last mission? He had gotten the basics from Kakashi by nin dog earlier in the week, but it seemed like such nonsense that he had dismissed the letter as false information from another village that had somehow obtained the summon contract for dogs as well.

"Yes I could have, but Naruto we need to tell the Hokage about the various…complications on our last mission and have your new bloodline examined by the hospital staff for any oddities or disadvantages you might have, better to find out now than in a fight right." He said with a customary eye smile to help set his young charge at ease. The boy never really had a use for hospitals with how quickly he had healed (currently chalked up to either Kyuubi or the new bloodline if they were not one and the same).

"So the report was real." Said the aging Kage as he examined the young boy before him. The two spiky haired nin had begun their reports normally enough with Naruto interjecting every now and then with his false facts that lent more credibility to their bloodline theory. "Naruto, even if it is a bloodline we will still have to check the seal for adverse effects" Naruto could feel the oh crap meter rising, he could replicate the seal on his skin, but he wouldn't be able to replicate the energy empowering it, and that was what any trained seal expert would be looking for when examining the seal, at least if the memories of Zabuza and Kyuubi were to be believed, "However we are currently lacking our resident seal expert and he is the only one who would be able to tell if the seal had been tampered with from the outside," the young infected could feel his nonexistent blood pressure dropping as his mild panic attack settled down. "But there is a certain clan within Konoha that could check on your seal from the inside."

The young blonde really had no idea what the wrinkly fire shadow was talking about, and it showed on his face, "The seal also has an astral form inside your mind, the Yamanaka clan specializes in entering the minds of others to attain information, however it can be used to check on the seal if necessary. If you will allow it we can have someone I consider extremely trustworthy come in and check. What do you think Naruto?" said the kindly Kage as he examined the blue eyed prankster before him, it was extremely rude to just barge into someone else mind without their permission, as acting Hokage he could order a ninja to undergo the process, but he felt it was better to give his shinobi more autonomy than was normally allowed within a hidden village.

"Sure, why not" he said with a slightly contemplative look on his face, inside he was asking Mercer to do him a favor. "_Hey, Alex, can you recreate the seal chamber and pretend to be that oversized plushy the nine tails when the Yamanaka person comes through here?" _Ceasing his mindless wandering of the twisted mass of organic tissue and spines that had become Naruto's mind the elder infected simply nodded his assent, he had never been a man of many words and he knew that his intent would carry over to the boy who was slowly devouring him.

He made his way to the area where the seal had been before the assimilation of the Demon king it was hard to tell among the multitude of interlacing membranes and the various spikes spines, tunnels and random elevation changes they made, but he could feel this was the place. "Hey, Kid you think you could make the prison, it is kind of your mind and I don't want to try and alter it if I don't have to" his voice echoed through the empty space between the pathways and various nodes scattered about. The reply came back almost instantly. "_yeah hang on a sec.", _the node that had been where the great demon king was imprisoned quickly began to shift, the familiar black and red tendrils erupting from various areas around him, twisting and writhing together into the huge bars he had remembered with a few changes. As before there was a rather large lock on the front covered by an elaborate seal inscribed on a piece of paper, but the bars themselves were extremely different. Instead of the clean solid lines of the 300' steel bars he remembered, these were warped and twisted, jagged blades erupting at odd intervals, not always on the inside of the cage, with a multitude of what looked like enormous manacles made of the corrupted flesh from their transformations. "_A little reassurance to the old guys that the 'kyuubi' is incapable of escape, the better our act is now the fewer times we have to repeat it." _Thought the amalgamation of Naruto Uzumaki and all the beings that had been absorbed into the Web of Intrigue.

"Nice, not what I had in mind, but it'll do." Thought back Mercer with a slightly demented grin on his face as he stepped through the bars. He began the shift as soon as he thought he had found a spot the right distance away from the bars, it would hurt quite a bit to expand into some of those barbs. He felt his jaws elongating into the massive drooling muzzle of the beast as his ears elongated and shifted towards the back of his head before the first of the cuffs sprung from the wall encircling his neck, surely choking him if he had needed to breathe. His body posture shifting from upright to quadruped form as the shift in his center of gravity from his spine and limbs elongating and gained a denser musculature, before they were encased at every joint by the disgusting looking manacles. He could feel the foreign sensation as a series of tails erupted from where the human tailbone used to reside, as they flailed wildly before being they too were clamped down by the new restraints. He tried to make himself comfortable in his temporary incarceration and hoped whatever mind mumbo jumbo these ninja needed to do was over with quickly.

The currently symbiotic duo (not very accurate but parasitic doesn't really cut it either.) didn't have to wait long, for which the faux-Kyuubi was thankful for (the cuffs were a major annoyance as he knew he couldn't shift them looser, it just wouldn't have the same effect), as the head of the Yamanaka clan arrived within minutes of the Hokage sending for him. The platinum haired 'man' (the Hokage assured him the clan heads was indeed male, but the younger blonde got a too much of a kick out of calling him missus Yamanaka and seeing him twitch to give it up, even though Mercer kept warning him not to upset the man who was about to get an all access pass inside his head.) had quickly prepared himself for the technique, he didn't want to possibly put himself in danger for any longer than he needed to, and this kid really annoyed him. He wasn't allowed to hurt him due to his oaths to Konoha, but he wanted to spend as little time with the brat as possible. He finished the hand seals for the more advanced form of the Yamanaka's most basic technique just as the boy finished making himself comfortable on the Hoakge's couch.

Forcing his 'mind' outside himself and into the boy was child's play; he had done it thousands of times to much less willing participants and had never had any real problems. As the outside world faded from his view and the boy's inner world came into focus he was shocked and slightly appalled. The mind reflects the users state of being and can be affected by things like bloodlines, but he had never seen anything like this. The mindscape was a massive web of interconnecting masses of what looked like vines but on closer inspection revealed themselves to be muscular tissue, veins, and what looks suspiciously like brain matter at certain junctions, but that wasn't what was currently freaking him out. No the masse of tissue had random spikes and spines, probably mental defenses, adorning the 'bridges' at odd intervals, they looked to be razor sharp bones with the area around them turning a sickly grey, their edges coated in what looked like steel. He might have been able to put up with the boys odd mental defense if it hadn't been for the eyes, they were spread throughout the boys mind, disembodied eyes, larger than Inoichi's head in some cases, roving their sockets with a hungry look about them, each one slightly different. The one he was currently staring at, and being stared at by, for instance had no sclera; it was dominated by a yellow colored iris with an ovoid pupil staring into his eyes with undisguised curiosity.

The clan head quickly moved on, who knew the kids head could be more annoying (he wouldn't call it creepy, ninja clan heads don't get the creeps) than he was in person. He carefully made his way between another set of blade like protrusions before coming upon the colossal distorted parody of a jail cell that housed the mightiest of the tailed beasts. It was almost sad seeing the Demon confined so thoroughly by the warped seal.

"**WHAT DO YOU WANT HUMAN, COME TO GLOAT A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR LEADER'S VICTORY?" **Was all Mercer had to say to destroy few still lingering doubts within the elder Yamanaka's mind, but he decided to play it up a little anyway, crashing against the bars in a show of impotent fury the mighty beasts form let loose a roar as he struggled against his constraints, "**IMPUDENT MORTAL, I SHALL BREAK OPEN YOUR BONES AND FEAST ON YOUR MARROW." **He cried as he was painfully jerked back by the 'seal' pretending to be trying to reach for the terrified human who was quickly fading out, his jaws snapping at the human he could not reach, saliva coating the walls as the creature mindlessly wailed and thrashed trying to reach its prize. When the last traces of the Yamanaka had left the extensive network that had become Naruto's mind the creature smirked, a facial expression that lent an even more demonic feel than the blind slavering rage from when the mind walker had been there.

"Too easy." Said the living virus as the manacles disengaged and his form shrank back in on itself, once more taking the shape of the being who had once been known simply as Zeus. The two infected left the cage for now, who knew if they would ever need something like that again. As the sentient plague set itself to wandering the web of intrigue, cataloging and bookmarking areas with interesting information, skill, or abilities they hadn't noticed, didn't know they had because they hadn't examined closely enough, or had simply been forgotten, he began to wonder "_what are we going to do now?"_

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When Inoichi had emerged from Naruto's mind he had been terrified, he had quickly reassured the two worried looking nin that he was fine, just a little shook up. Once he had finally gotten his shaking form back under control and the only Uzumaki in Konoha had awakened he began to speak about what he'd seen, starting with "The beast is still well contained, as a matter of fact I think the boys bloodline might have even reinforced the seal." Seeing the proclaimed 'God of Shinobi" waving him to continue with an interested quirking of his wrinkled brow he told them about the horrific cage and manacles that had seemed to come up out of the very substance the boys mind was made of, "I think his Kekkai Genkai identified it as a Hazard to his body, similar to a white blood cell identifying foreign matter and took steps to contain it." he had absolute faith in his idea, "_even if it was absolutely wrong it was a rather interesting theory"_ thought the boy in question.

Nodding his head the aged shadow grasped his pipe firmly between his lips, sucking a deep lungful of the deadly tobacco before exhaling it in a perfect ring, "Well than, seems everything is in order," flipping through the massive piles of paperwork on his desk, the wrinkled shinobi withdrew an envelope before handing it over to the Torture and Interrogation specialist, "give that to the man at the mission office, you will be paid for a double A ranked mission for your help today." The warm smile on the man's grandfatherly face, as well as the nearly S ranked pay he had received for about an hour of his time and extreme danger, sent the man home with a smile to take his wife out for a night on the town, she had been complaining a little about never going out anymore and a payday like this was the perfect opportunity.

As the whistling Yamanaka left his office, trauma immediately forgotten like a true shinobi, the old man faced the two other active ninja in his office before dismissing them with a casual wave. They had just gotten back from a rather stressful mission, he already had their mission reports, Kakashi's notes, as well as ironclad proof that the demon had not broken free; anything else could wait until after they were rested. Smiling indulgently at the newest bloodline user in the ranks of Konoha as the young boy hefted his pack and began demanding his sensei teleport him back to his home since it was his fault he had to walk so far anyway all he could think was "_Hhehehehe, this'll put a twist in the council's collective knickers, it was getting a little too quiet around here anyhow." _The old simian shinobi took one last drag off his pipe before settling back into the monotonous reading and signing that had existed since the dawn of bureaucracy.

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1) Wow there's a dumb phrase, talking about the physical characteristics of a shape shifter. 2) This is a weapon from another game; the weapons cool even if the game wasn't that fun. Guess the weapon and I'll be willing to give an OC of yours a role later on as a major/minor villain. Only the first person to get it right gets to have their OC to be the villain (if no one gets it I have someone in mind) applicants should be cruel, ruthless, and non squeamish. 3) Zabuza got a kill from the grave…hehe 4) this means anyone he didn't splatter with his new morning star. 5) Hey he does rely on hiding and usually kills in the first stroke. 6) Hey mercer's from our time and so are the people he's absorbed, I think he knows what an Oscar is. 7) not so epic foreshadowing 8) you know I just thought about the teams dynamic, Naruto Likes Sakura and hates Sasuke, Sakura is obsessed Sasuke and hates Naruto, and Sasuke who intensely dislikes Sakura and… I think I need some mind soap. 9) I'm averaging 10 as the age that kids start to at least look at their opposite gendered peers as more than cootie farms 10) you can mimic with enough skill but not exactly copy without examining the body. 11) fuck you all I'm American and I wanted potatoes. 12) Come on the guys a kage, and that kind of guy continues living by being paranoid, I doubt he doesn't have a way to hide his porn immediately if he is somehow surprised while at the same time keeping it handy.

Oh that reminds me go over to Soulblazer87's profile and vote on a name for Naruto's bloodline in his fic. Me and him are putting together ideas for names and we just put them all up on his profile, I'm kinda partial to the body arts one. We might share the first place one or one of us used second place we don't quite know yet. Anyway review and tell me what you think.


	3. training daze

From: Ferail Slade  
Subject: ch 3  
To: "shaddow assasin"  
Date: Monday, September 21, 2009, 3:29 PM

i think its okay

Hybrid Ch. 3: training day.

**By: Ferail**

**Author's notes: I only played the beginning of the game so I don't really know much about it if you see any flaws point them out. **

**Disclaimer: **If you had the same idea at some point in time, or even part of the idea, just assume it's yours and that I'm not claiming credit for it. Now we can all move on with our lives.

"Hello, Bing Bing delivery service" talking

"_Duck, flapjack, firehouse, swimming pool, dill pickle, I like tacos, mackerel" thinking_

"hallo Billy Rae innut here right nuw may I be taking a massage for him" writing

"**I'D LIKE THREE LARGE PEPERONNI PIZZAS PLEASE" demon speaking**

"_**I ATE YOUR SHORTS" DEMON THINKING**_

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Everybody thank my BETA shadowassasin for the prompt return of this chapter, say hi shadow… God dammit shadow say something….

SHADOWASSASIN: hi

Looks like he's feeling a little shy. Anyway I saw something recently and I thought it was a good idea, I'm going to promote stories I read a liked right up here. Starting off I'm going to recommend pretty much anything princess Alexandria wrote, be warned though it's almost exclusively femslash (Yuri). Good stuff though.

_There is nothing to winning, really. That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever. – Alfred Hitchcock __________________________________________________________________

He had finally managed to talk the one eyed pervert into teleporting him back to his apartment, and it had only taken another six minutes of whining about how it was all his fault. The newly instated gennin grinned to himself, that had gone perfectly; no one suspected a thing about his newest capabilities. He giggled slightly as he congratulated himself on his marvelous acting skills, before he settled into his room to wait. He remembered another facet of his reconstructed body from Mercer's life time, he no longer needed to sleep or eat, he'd in essence just gained about nine hours in his day, maybe a little more if you took into account all the little inanities like showering and brushing his teeth.

The problem really lied in finding something to do with his new free time without anyone becoming suspicious. He could practice some of his body's new abilities and try and think up new ones, at least the ones that he could mess with inside, but that could only occupy so much time and it was more of a work in progress he would continue until the day he died, or whatever happened to beings like him when they ceased to exist. Elemental manipulation wasn't something he wanted to fiddle with in his apartment, and he'd have to stay there for at least seven hours in case anyone was watching his home.

He decided to spend his first night of insomnia into a sort of planning night for the next few weeks; after all there really wasn't much else he could do at the moment. Turning to the barren bookcase the boy grabbed an unused notebook and began scribbling things down, most would have to wait till morning like buying more books or a video game system, but some he could do right then and there like planning out a schedule for training in his 'bloodline' and anything else he could think of. He also wrote down a few experiments to try at his soonest convenience, Mercer had never really had time to experiment with his abilities, the orange wearing gennin's curiosity drove him to know more about the limitations of his power.

He glanced at a clock as he filled the thirtieth page of the note book with theories, ideas, questions, and possible ways to alleviate his soon to be nightly boredom; it was barely two in the morning, meaning he had at least three hours to kill before he could even pretend like he was an early riser…Fucking great. Closing the book for now, he climbed to his feet, his slightly lengthened hair spilling over his false headband he was suddenly struck by inspiration. The tendrils that engulfed him whenever he changed rapidly from one form to another, maybe he could do something more with those, he could change his arms into weapons and had recently managed to throw a piece of his shifted body around like a demented shuriken, why shouldn't he be able to control the tentacles.

He moved the large bathroom mirror that had once been over the sink into the living room, the large piece of glass had come off the wall one day after it rained, apparently his part of the building had busted roofing and the rain had rotted away at the drywall holding the heavy piece of reflective glass in place. He'd been seven at the time and nearly crushed when the cheap mirror had fallen while he was washing his hands. Dismissing the bizarre (possibly intentional) accident (2) from his mind the young shape shifter sat down once more, this time facing the mirror. He concentrated on the tendrils, that slight warm rubbery feel as they slid along his skin warping and twisting whatever they touched, he could feel his cells shifting at his thoughts pushing through the skin in long black and red tendrils waggling through the air as they extended themselves. It was odd, this feeling, the extra limbs forming out of his body, the original virus had never tried anything like this and Naruto could understand why as he felt another quartet of tentacles emerging just along where his spine should have been, it was disconcerting growing extra limbs.

None of the beings they had absorbed had any experience with how the slimy looking appendage moved or how to direct more than four limbs. Turning to his reflection the only Uzumaki in Konoha noted the multitude of six foot protrusions extending themselves from his skin at odd intervals waving about without direction. Deciding to start of smaller, and hopefully more controllable, the blonde virus pulled on the cells making up the vast majority of the tendrils back within himself, noting the disorientation that came with creating an extra limb and then dismissing them. The two remaining tentacles were based on his upper back between his shoulder blades but slightly to the side of his spine, directly in the forehead of the demonic image he had created on his jacket giving them the strange appearance of horns/antenna, he had shortened them to barely three foot in length, trying to get a feel for his new appendages.

They were odd to control, slightly different from an arm, but not so much that it was impossible for him to understand. Within an hour he had gained a degree of control over them similar to his original arms, he even managed to use one to write out a quick message at one point to check their dexterity. He'd found the new appendages had a great deal of flexibility as he had managed to somehow tie the left one into a knot, shifting the incapacitated tendril into its old shape with a thought the former jinchuruki considered his inhuman additions. They just didn't seem to fit in with the established transformations, while they were inhuman and frightening it they just felt as if they needed something.

He shifted a tentacle forward slightly noticing how it stretched slightly and snapped it down like a whip cracking the air. Looking at it he finally saw what was missing, this weapon wasn't cruel looking enough, even made of his grayish skin they lacked the demonic edge of his other weapons. The multi eyed blonde decided to add that hint of cruelty to the whip like limbs, trying to maintain that same level of dexterity and usefulness.

An hour and a half later he had finally managed to give his weapons the same monstrous feel as his others, though he was slightly more proud of this one since he had created it on his own, more so than even the flail, which was just a combination of preexisting mutations. They were still around three feet long, but the overall shape and appearance had changed drastically. Where there had once been smooth gray flesh there was now an overlapping set of chitinous armor segmented to allow for maximum flexibility. The ends had blunted and expanded from their previously pointed appearance allowing for the addition of the slavering mouth at the end, it was about three inches deep and contained a single black worm like tongue as well as three sets of overlapping razor sharp teeth, as well as a set of three spine like protrusions from the 'chin'. On either side of the mouth there were a set of pupil-less red eyes that faintly glowed in the pitiful lighting that managed to make its way into his apartment from the street lights outside. Along the edge of his newest appendages, from the crown of their heads until they disappeared into his shirt there were a multitude of two and a half inch gray spines that seemed to shiver in satisfaction as he forced the creature like extension of himself forward examining its reflection through the functional eyes he had thought to add near the end.

Satisfied with his work for the moment he dismissed the dark snake like limbs and examined the clock once more, four thirty…._'eh close enough' _he thought to himself as he headed for the door, snagging the notebook off the table as he went, '_maybe I can get a training ground to myself this early'._ That would actually be pretty nice and he desperately needed privacy for a few of the ideas he had written down earlier that morning, playing around with your physiology on a regular basis to form grotesque parodies of limbs and weaponry wasn't exactly something everyone could stomach. Leaving his hood back to enjoy the sunrise better the shape shifting shinobi exited into the glorious predawn.

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'_Okay so there are people in this village more disturbing than me' _

The blue eyed virus had the distinct 'pleasure' of greeting the "YOUTHFUL GREEN BEAST AND HIS MOST GLORIOUS STUDENT IN THE YOUTHFUL WAYS" as he headed towards what he had thought was a normally unused training ground. At first he had only paid the barest amount of attention to the two blurs of forest green that were approaching him at a breakneck pace, thinking it was just a pair of jonin coming in from a black ops mission or something. That is until he had begun to hear them, they were shouting to the heavens about the glories of youth and he was guessing hair care products as he got a better look at them.

The two green blurs were actually two near identical ninja, one being about a foot and a half shorter than the other giving the blond former prankster the unpleasant image that these two might be father and son ('_who in their right mind allowed that to BREED')_. The identical ninja's wore skin tight forest green body suits that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, ('_OH DEAR GOD MY EYES, ALL EIGHT OF THEM'),_ their lower legs were incased in bright orange leg warmers similar in coloration to his old jumpsuit, their headbands tied around their waists simulating a belt, ('_WHY THE HELL DO THEY NEED A BELT WITH CLOTHES THAT TIGHT, SOMEONE TAKE OUT MY EYES). _ Even their distinctive facial features greatly resembled one another, the massive caterpillar like eyebrows, (mercer examined them from within his host's mind and wondered if it was possible for someone's eyebrows to consume their face.) their identically shined bowl cuts seemed to sparkle in the early morning light. The only real differences he could spot from across the quickly diminishing distance were that the smaller one wore bandages on his hand and the older one had a jonin's flak jacket.

As the distance continued closing he began to make out their facial features, the small one who was currently extolling the virtues of "YOUTHFUL TRAINING AND MISSIONS IN THE EARLY MORNING, YOSH, " had slightly less masculine features as well as the oddest pair of bug eyes the unhooded nin had ever seen. They both carried half filled trash bags and pick pokers (1) impaling pieces of detritus as they raced along the empty streets. When they were nearly five feet away they seemed to skid to a halt turning to face him, eyes alight with some strange fire.

"LOOK LEE, ANOTHER WHO WISHES TO STOKE HIS ROARING FLAMES OF YOUTH BY TRAINING ON THIS GLORIOUS MORN!!!!!!" said the larger of the two green psychopaths as he gazed at the currently stunned young gennin. He was sure that if he had ear drums they would have ruptured, and he was currently wondering if he should have worn his hood up to hide his headband, maybe these two fruitcakes wouldn't have noticed him if they thought he was a civilian. His attention was so transfixed on the two green monstrosities before him he almost didn't notice as the pair of what he assumed to be young women approached, though on closer inspection the long haired gennin appeared to be a BOY, wow shocker.

The one on the left dressed himself in an off-white blouse…I mean button up shirt and deep blue, bordering on black, shorts. His shinobi sandals were standard, as was the headband adorning his forehead, the only real deviation lay in the long hair that reached down to his mid back where it was gathered into what looked like a hair band and the bandages covering his forelimbs on the rights side of his body. Naruto briefly wondered if the boy was blind as he looked through the eyes on his shoulder at the pupil-less orbs before 'remembering' from Zabuza's memories that those distinctive eyes belonged to a member of the Hyuuga clan and were the hallmark of the families doujutsu, now that he thought about it he remembered someone from his class had eyes like that as well, maybe they were related. The tomboyish girl following on the left had her hair pinned up into two mouse ear like buns on the top of her head with a pair of hair bands, her chocolate brown eyes inspecting the leather wearing ninja being talked at by her sensei. Her pink Chinese style blouse accentuated her developing curves while maintaining modesty, her baggy black cargo pants jingling slightly as she jogged along stabbing at stray pieces of trash that her exuberant teammates missed. '_Hey she's kinda cute' _he thought to himself, Mercer felt himself grinning devilishly as that thought ran through the former Jinchuruki's head, there was so much potential to fuck with the kid's head right there.

"YOSH, GAI SENSEI, I SEE THE WONDERFUL POWERS OF YOUTH BURN BRIGHT WITHIN HIM, I WILL STRIVE TO MATCH OUR WONDERFUL COMRADES YOUTHFUL FIRES, AND IF I CANNOT DO THAT I SHALL-" unable to take any more the thuggish gennin had enhanced his musculature underneath his clothing and slammed his muscle mass enhanced fist into the screaming boys face, cutting him off quite rudely.

Seeing the stunned look on the older man's face he knew he had made a mistake, but he thought he might be able to play into the odd jonin's delusions here to get himself out of trouble, "I'M DEEPLY SORRY GAI SENSEI, BUT YOUR MAGNIFICENT DISPLAY OF YOUTHFULNESS HAS BROUGHT MY OWN FLAMES OF YOUTH UP INTO A ROARING BLAZE OF YOUTHFUL FIRE THAT I HAD HOPED TO EXPRESS IN A YOUTHFUL SPARING MATCH, IN MY EXUBERANCE I FORGOT TO ISSUE THE FORMAL CHALLENGE!!!!!" he screamed, forcing down the mass of bile from his nonexistent digestive tract, hoping against hope that the bushy browed jonin would accept the flimsy excuse, he really didn't want to test himself against an unknown jonin without at least some form of back up or something. He might be able to take him, but he would have to expose abilities that he was hoping to keep secret for at least a little longer. The two normal seeming gennin were staring at the blonde as if he had grown a second head that immediately started singing show tunes.

"YOSH, OF COURSE WE UNDERSTAND, SUCH YOUTHFULLNESS MUST BE CELEBRATED, DON'T YOU AGREE GAI-SENSEI" yelled the gennin he had believed completely incapacitated, there was more to this green buffoon than he had thought. "I ACCEPT YOUR CHALLENGE, MIGHT I INQUIRE AS TO THE NAME OF MY MOST GRACIOUS SPARING PARTNER ON THIS MOST YOUTHFUL MORN!!" he screamed once more earning him a few shouts of "BE QUIET" and "SHUT THE FUCK UP" from various villagers throughout the hidden city.

"My name is Naruto Uzumaki," he said in a more normal voice, he didn't think he could maintain that level of stupidity the entire time he was around the two odd shinobi. He hadn't expected for the elder ninja to immediately recognize his name and respond with an even brighter smile than before. If he'd had veins he was sure they would have been pumping ice as the nearly six foot green jonin raced forward and struck a pose, his right arm out with his thumb extended. The man's inhumanely white teeth sparkling in the breaking dawn. As Naruto took in the extremely creepy pose he could only wonder one thing, "_is this guy a member of the torture and interrogation division?"_

The crazed jonin's voice dropped down to almost tolerable levels as he began his next impassioned speech, "AHA, yes. You are one of my hip rival's youthful pupils. Allow me to introduce my most youthful team, I am Maito Gai the GREEN BEAST OF KONHA" His teeth seemed to sparkle even brighter, if such a thing was possible, "You have already met my student in the ways of hard work and taijutsu ROCK LEE THE AZURE BEAST", ("YOSH GAI SENSEI"), "My teams most youthful kunoichi TEN TEN" Trying to act like he hadn't been expecting the green man to say he had two kunoichi on his team Naruto looked at the teams last member once again wondering if he had been born with a stick up his ass or if he had fallen on a rake as a child "and my last student the youthful NEJI HYUGA" the long haired boy seemed unfazed by his tutor's exuberance as he bellowed out his name. "Kakashi-san and I have a most youthful rivalry that has lasted throughout the years, currently the score stands at 50-50 (3) dead even between the two of us." The blue eyed metamorph was busy wondering what kind of rivalry his calm collected and overall lazy sensei could have with the overenthusiastic green jonin before him, he doubted his sensei would even show up to his opposite numbers challenge. "He has spoken of your most recent mission when I met him last evening, such an explosion of youthfulness from one so young. "

The moment the bushy browed sensei had mentioned that Naruto was one of his rival's students the younger of the green duo had seemed to gain the same fire in his eyes from before, "YOSH, Gai-sensei, it looks as though I too may have found a rival. Who better than one trained by my own sensei's rival? YOSH!!!" Now Naruto was wondering to himself just what he had gotten himself into. He had no time to wonder as the bug eyed gennin had grabbed him by the arm, and, not giving him a moment to protest, the boy had dashed away dragging him off to the nearest training ground.

The bushy browed boy's teammates gave a long suffering sigh as they grabbed his discarded tools and followed along behind their overenthusiastic sensei. They briefly wondered if the strange thuggish gennin would be okay, well the weapon obsessed teen was worried the long haired bloodline user was extremely apathetic towards the hood wearing teen's plight, merely wondering how much of his day would be taken up by his teammates nonsense. Coming upon the clearing where the loud gennin had dragged the newcomer they saw the two staring each other down from opposite ends of the training field, the darker boy's hood up shadowing his face from view.

The slightly crazed jonin took in his 'most precious pupil's' stance and couldn't help the slight grin that appeared on his features, the boy had fallen into a perfect Goken stance, one hand extended forward not quite in a fist yet but ready to fold in on itself in an instant to maximize the power of his strikes. His right foot extended slightly, both knees bent just so to allow for conservation of energy and maximum mobility, as his left hand curled into a fist behind his back, for additional balance and to prepare for a powerful combo he had just perfected the week before. Nodding at his most enthusiastic student's form he turned to take a better look at the stance of his rival's pupil, only to receive the shock of his life.

The boy had taken up a stance he could not define, Konohagakure's premier taijutsu expert could not even begin to guess what had influenced the strange boy's style from the opening stance alone, but what was contained within that stance was enough to amaze the relatively young jonin. He could detect bits and pieces of twenty different styles of martial arts he knew as well as at least a dozen he couldn't place, though most were only beginner level with a few intermediate and advanced level influences as well. Where had his rival's student picked up such an array of close combat styles, it seemed impossible for even a prodigy of Itachi Uchiha's stature or even his own glorious companion in the wondrous joys of hard work could learn as many style's as this boy seemed to know and incorporate them into a single cohesive stance.

As the young man settled into his odd mishmash of seemingly incompatible styles his most devout student shot off his end of the field leaving small craters in the ground as he covered the distance in an instant smashing his bandaged fist into the metamorph's cheek, sending him careening into a tree on the outer edges of the clearing. The boy looked slightly shocked and apologetic as his sensei's eyes widended slightly, had he misjudged the boy's fighting skills? The young girl looked slightly horrified while the raven tressed Hyuga simply looked on as apathetic as before.

"#cough#, Good one Lee." Came the slightly winded voice from within the cloud of dust the boy's impact had generated, surprising almost everyone in the clearing while reaffirming the green jonin's interest in the young man, not many could withstand that kind of force and still be conscious afterwards, maybe this boy had been trying out a new stance at the beginning and had thought to see how the hybrid style faired in actual combat. Now that he had seen that he couldn't take his student lightly maybe the enigmatic blonde would use one of the many styles that had been incorporated into the strange stance or switch over to a different style of fighting he had more skill in. "Didn't quite expect to meet someone who could move at those speeds among my peers, interesting."

He stepped through the clouds of billowing sawdust revealing himself to be completely unharmed, not even his clothing was scuffed or torn in the slightest, "This will be most…educational" he mused to himself before he seemed to explode into action. As Lee had done before him he rushed forward with a speed that matched, or possibly even exceeded, the young taijutsu user's own as he closed the distance in an instant, his arms bursting into streamers of red and black as he went swelling and maiming his flesh until the boys arms were hardly recognizable. If Lee had been stunned before at the young infected's speed he was paralyzed in shock at this point. The bulging gray flesh seemed to ripple with restrained violence within the body builder sized muscles he had gained in a manner of seconds, the inhuman limbs were further weaponized by the strange extended elbows designed for smashing and cutting. None of those present had ever seen any technique even close to the odd transformation that seemed to fade into the boy's jacket, and were caught completely flat footed as the gobsmacked Lee was smashed head first into one of the old pine trees surrounding the clearing.

"Come on Lee, the party has just gotten started," the transformed blonde shouted as he raced towards the other teen's location, ignoring the startled looks on team 9's face's. His inhuman dash landed him in front of the dazed gennin just in time to receive a powerful kick on his enhanced arms. Using the younger boy's arms as a pivot the older gennin flipped over his arms bringing his other heel down on the blonde's skull with bone jarring force. Rolling with the elder boys attack the shape shifting teen swung his own heel up into the bug eyed boy's face stunning him momentarily. He recovered in an instant bringing his hands together in an overhand smash that sent the younger gennin crashing into the hard packed dirt. He leapt away to the upper branches of one of the surrounding trees, trying to put some distance between himself and the seemingly inhuman boy.

Pushing himself back onto his feet the sentient virus flipped into the air, his right arm erupting into those horrifying tendrils from before, twisting and mutating flesh leaving the boys right arm into the jagged spines and entangled roots that were the hallmark of the whip fist. Swinging the strange limb forward the whole of team gai was once again rendered speechless as the strange limb stretched the thirty feet between them easily gripping hold of Gai jr's arm before using it as leverage to yank himself up into the miniature green beast. The jutting bone that had extended from his left elbow slicing slightly above the older boys eye before he brought his other hand around as it swelled back into the body builder esque muscle mass and grabbing his bushy browed opponent by the face he dropped back down to the forest floor slamming the bandaged gennin into a limb about six feet off the ground.

Slightly winded the mini-gai clone swung off the branch slamming his feet into the blonde's face, sending him carrening into another tree. Ducking under the follow up Naruto jabbed the odd boy in the chin stunning him momentarily, he followed up with a debilitating elbow to the solar plexus that left the other boy winded and staggering his boney extensions nearly cracking several. Closing the distance Naruto didn't expect the older boy to slam his head into his own momentarily disorientating them both once more, however the infected teen recovered first.

Spotting his opening the blonde kage to be pushed forward sending his unenhanced sparring partner skidding away as one of his gorillaish arm slammed into his guts. He was understandably caught flat footed by his opponent's inhuman recovery time as the older teen dashed back at him smacking into his unguarded midsection with several punishing blows that brought the newly created virus to his knees. The green gennin didn't let up though smashing his knee into the blonde boy's chin sending him careening towards another tree, at least it would have if the boys back had not erupted into the inhumanely quick tentdrils from before, except this time instead of reshaping existing limbs the slithering tentacles seemed to be forming a new set of limbs all together. The tendrils spun themselves together into two massive six foot tentacles (4) that grabbed the other youth's arms to arrest the blonde student's momentum.

With a great heave the blonde boy used his frightening new limbs to yank the older boy off the ground and slam him into another of the trees surrounding the clearing, sending up a shower of splinters throughout the cratered glade as the older boy impacted with bone shattering force. Feeling someone grab onto the tentacles before he could retract them the blonde virus prepared to fling the fashion impaired boy through another tree to end the match, only to see the elder of the two imbeciles holding the groaning boy by his shoulder, smiling that same sparkling smile from earlier that morning. His battered student standing next to him, several scratches and tears in his spandex body suit but he could tell that it was only superficial damage, the worst injury the boy was sporting seemed to be the cut above his right eye where he had been grazed by Naruto's muscle mass enhanced elbows, which surprised the young metamorph more than he cared to admit. With all the powerful blows and unexpected flights across the clearing he had expected the boy to at least have a few budding bruises, but he seemed nearly unscathed and was still smiling that disturbing grin he had sported when he had first met the odd duo around half an hour ago. Slightly perturbed the tentacle gennin slithered his new appendage out of the green jonin's grasp, but Gai didn't seem to even notice.

"YOSH, Gai-sensei his flames of youth burn most brightly indeed." Said the catipillar browed student as he faced his sparring partner once more, "YOSH, his style and techniques are like nothing I have ever seen before, truly he must be another student of hard work as well." He said, shining rivers of tears flowing down his face as he raced towards his unwilling opponent. "YOSH… IT SEEMS I HAVE FINALLY FOUND SOMEONE WORTHY OF BECOMING MY ETERNAL RIVAL." The Uzumaki youth hadn't really understood much of that, but he did get the general idea that he would be seeing the two fruitcakes and their team members a lot more often than he necessarily wanted, though in the kunoichi's case he might make an exception if she had a personality, he really didn't know yet as he had only spoken with the two green nuts in front of him.

"YES. I BELIEVE YOU ARE CORRECT MY STUDENT, THIS MOST YOUTHFUL SPARRING MATCH. NARUTO-KUN WHAT WERE THOSE STRANGE TRANSFORMATION TECHNIQUES YOU USED AGAINST MY MOST YOUTHFUL LEE-KUN. THEY WERE A YOUTHFUL EXPLOSION THE LIKE OF WHICH I HAVE ONLY SEEN IN MY OWN STUDENTS." Screamed the taller of the two green suited nightmares, directing his sparkly eyed stare onto the decidedly uncomfortable gennin. Pulling his hood back down Naruto rehearsed his cover story to himself once more before smiling his best grin, consciously changing his teeth to resemble Zabuza's shark like teeth as he exposed them and chomping them once before reverting them back to their only slightly pointed state.

"It's not really a technique," he said causing even the apathetic Hyuuga to lean forward slightly while worrying the jolly green giant of a jonin, "it's been classified as a newly discovered bloodline, I unlocked it in our last mission when we met an A-Class missing nin, actually I was out this morning to get some practice in with it to find out some of the limits and how I could use it in an actual fight. Thanks for that by the way Lee-san, I still have a lot of work to do figuring it out and that battle was most informative." The formerly exuberant boy had seemed to sag slightly when his sparring partner was revealed to be another bloodline user, but he had perked up quite a bit when the thuggish boy complimented him.

"So what exactly is your bloodline, I've never heard of anything like what we saw earlier," said the formerly silent Neji as he gazed at the odd gennin with an unwavering stare.

"Not really sure yet, so far I only know a few basics about it," lied the amalgamation of flesh and knowledge, "I have extremely rapid healing, I was sliced in half on our last mission and I don't even have a scar," he said watching the team's only female member pale slightly before looking at him oddly, "I can pretty much control my body to the extent of forcing mutations," here his arm shifted again, bursting into the familiar tentacles before dispercing to reveal the two feet of blade and corrupted flesh that had once been his arm "and even create new limbs." The tentacles from before waving around slightly as if to emphasize his point, he thought the males might have gotten that last bit, but the teams bun haired female still seemed amazed at the transformed flesh, bone and steel that had been an arm. And were those sparkles in her eyes?

Shifting his arm back into the less conspicuous human hands he dusted himself off before smiling brightly at the eccentric team he had met by accident. "I'm sure you guys have stuff of your own to do today, and I was hoping to get some solo practice in myself today before I have to meet my sensei." The blond hybrid said stretching his shoulders slightly, "so I guess I'll see you guys around, yeah? "

"OH MOST CERTAINLY, COME LEE, WE MUST NOT DISTURB A COMRADES YOUTHFUL TRAINING." Flashing his teeth once again the tights wearing jonin retrieved his pick poker and trash bag from his other team members, "YOSH, we will complete our glorious D-rank mission before six AM or I shall climb the Hokage monument 10,000 times without chakra or my arms and with one foot tied to my back." He dashed off with his protégé in hot pursuit along with the rest of his team moving at a more sedate pace, leaving one perplexed gennin with the distinct impression that he now understood why kids hadn't liked him in the academy, if he was anything like those two he was surprised none of the other students had actually stabbed him.

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Deciding that the demolished training ground he was in would do for the moment, the newly minted gennin settled himself down on the grass to practice some of the abilities he had absorbed from Haku and Zabuza. The hooded boy decided he had enough close range abilities to last him quite some time, but he was extremely lacking in the jutsu/long range department so he would endeavor to understand Haku's bloodline and see what he was capable of with it. Zabuza had a very basic understanding of how the young girls bloodline had worked before their death, it was basically nature manitpulation and combination of the two basic forces of wind and water on a near instinctual level with a great deal of control needed to form shapes like she had done with the mirrors and senbon, though he did remember seeing a few beginner techniques that did not have strict control requirements.

That's about the point when Naruto realized he really couldn't use the current clearing, it may have been too demolished for most people to even contemplate using, but there was no ready source of water available to practice the techniques. He could attempt to pull the water out of the air, and it would be good practice, but he felt he needed a base line for the techniques before he started experimenting with new ways to use them. After all before now he had always had Mercer's insights and understanding of his powers to lean on when he was using his 'bloodline' but this was mostly unmapped territory. With that in mind the young hybrid set off in search of a new training ground, hopefully with a river or some kind of water source readily available.

Perfect, after nearly an hour of searching he had found a semi-secluded clearing that met his criteria. Surrounded by foliage, off the beaten path, under maintained meaning few people ever came here, with a natural spring about twenty feet in diameter at its widest point that seemed to be fed by an underground aquifer. Standing at the edge of the shallow pool, it couldn't have been more than six feet deep, he began slowly trying to coax the water in the pool to move upward using water nature as he remembered seeing Haku do. However he had overestimated how much energy the beginner exercise required and wound up sending the water rocketing upward in a six foot tall column of liquid. '_this is going to be tougher than I thought'_

Nearly an hour into the training and the former demon container had finally managed to gain a level of control over the water that would have put Zabuza to shame, though to be fair he was drawing upon the demon of the hidden mist's own abilities and observations as well as a bloodline users natural ability to manipulate the element. Deeming himself ready for the next step the boy began concentrating on adding the second element, and found himself surprised at how easily it melded together with the water nature, too easily. Before he even had time to realize what he had done the six inch sphere of water had frozen solid…and exploded. Shards of needle like ice flinging outward and freezing everything within a foot of their resting places, including Naruto's entire left arm.

Groaning to himself the hybrid realized exactly what had happened, when he had added too much wind chakra he had chilled it unevenly and too quickly, sure water could be frozen quickly like he had seen on the bridge, but it had to be done evenly and could not be made too cold or what happened here would happen everytime he tried to use it. The spheres outer shell had frozen first and had not been able to stand up to the expanding ice within it when the wind nature penetrated the sphere further causing it to explode, and it froze everything because he had overpowered it with the super dense wind nature that he hadn't had much practice with, though Zabuza had had a minor wind affinity he had preferred to use water techniques and hadn't really tried anything with wind in years.

Falling back onto the patch of unfrozen ground behind him he examined his frozen limb, he couldn't feel it at all. The cells inside the icy prison were probably already dead, the water inside them crystallized and puncturing their fragile insides, great now he had to collect more biomass, sure he could dip into his vast stores and create a new limb, but he preferred to save that for mid battle regeneration if he could. It was always safer to walk into a battle on a full tank. Sighing disgustedly to himself the blond metamorph smashed the fragile arm pop on a nearby rock shattering it into millions of pieces. Lying back on the grass he began formulating plans to gather more biomass without drawing attention to himself when he felt something odd from the stump where his arm would have met his shoulder. Looking over at the jagged break he was only slightly shocked to see several tendrils flailing about, seemingly at random. But his interest was quickly piqued as he felt his arm regrowing without depleting his internal stores.

Looking at the writhing tendrils more closely he couldn't help but laugh as he felt the rearranging cellular structure he normally got after absorbing something without the accompanying memories, his tentacles were absorbing the grass. "Seems my body instinctually knows more than I do." He giggled to himself, it seemed that as long as it was or had been living at one point he could absorb it, this opened up so many possibilities. Stretching his newly reformed arm, he couldn't help but notice something…it was green. That would make it extremely difficult to hide, immediately after he thought that the arm shifted its pigmentation slowly fading back to his normal hue. He could feel the foreign DNA flowing through his cells, being incorporated into every fiber of his being. Though as the odd pigmentation disappeared a constant flow of energy he hadn't even noticed before seemed to disappear with it. For some reason he had felt more alive with the sun beating down on his oddly hued flesh.

Deciding to experiment with the odd sensation the transformed teen shifted the hue of his arm once more to the deep forest green it had been mere moments before. Within seconds he felt a steady stream of energy flowing through him from his arm, odd, he seemed to have gained something from absorbing the plants…chlorophyll if his memories were correct. The blue eyed former demon container could not contain his grin, this opened up so many possibilities. He would have to look into taking walks through the forest to find potentially useful modifications, maybe he would find a book on flora and fauna around Konoha and see if they had anything that he might find useful.

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Within an hour of discovering the recent addition to his body the blonde hybrid had designed a rather basic use for it, enhancing his already impressive stamina. He'd even found a way to use the skill unobtrusively, the leather jacket that had once adorned his shoulders was gone and his hoodie had changed quite a bit. Whereas before it had been a simple dark grey sweatshirt, it was now a deep green, almost the same color as Gai and Lee's jumpsuits. Stitched into the back of his 'new' clothing was an enormous bloodshot eye running vertically up and down his spine, people might begin to take notice of the demonic face on his jacket if it was on every piece of his clothing and that would not do at all. Taking up residence on his shoulder blades was what appeared to be a pair of Kunai cases, they served no real purpose, but they would force potential foes to underestimate him and assume that those were where he would be forced to retrieve his weapons from. The front of the teens new hood had a large pocket at a little above the waist, (5) again it served no true purpose, but he might distract an enemy for an instant and he might just start keeping scrolls or a book in it for those long stretches of boredom after a D-rank or whenever the mood struck him.

Deciding he found his new look satisfactory the blond looked up at the sun as it rose above the horizon, '_little after seven then, I could go collect my pay from our 'C-rank' and head over to the book store or something, training grounds are about to get really crowded soon. Though I will have to remember this place for early morning training. I can probably finish up before Kakashi usually has us meet .'_ desperate to relieve the boredom he would feel later that evening the low ranked shonobi left the partially frozen clearing, unaware of crimson eyes watching him with no small amount of envy and disgust.

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Yeah I wanted to get the first encounter with Gaara in here, but it just got too long and I was already late so I thought I might as well give you what I have and get it and the first exam in next chappie.

Oh yeah, do you guys think I should add some omake's to the end of my stories. I was thinking about on I wanted to do recently about ninja's in physics class, tell me what you think.

1)I don't know what they're really called, but there those things you use to pick up trash so you don't have to bend down and pick it up. 2) just noticed that, purposeful accident hehehe 3) anybody else think the fight between sasuke and Lee at the chunnin exams was when Gai claimed his victory, I dunno I thought it was something like a win for my student against your student is a win for me. I dunno just a thought. 4) not the scary form he spent the night making but the original forms, seemed to work better there, and he probably wants to keep something that freakish in reserve. 5) the waist is where your belt is supposed to go on your pants to me, not sure if that's correct though


End file.
